I]
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This book is dedicated to its real authors — to my
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for the narrative and thereby
made its publication
possible.
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH
SYDENHAM
A RETROSPECTIVE SKETCH OF THE
VILLAGES OF LEITH AND ANNAN,
GREY COUNTY, ONTARIO
BY ^^o-^"^
RICHARDSON. BOND & WRIGHT. Limited
OWEN SOUND, ONT.
19 2 4
ill
/:\
THE PASSING OF THE PIONEER
Down the last of the trails they are bearing,
In a solemn and glorious line,
Through the valley of death they are faring.
With a soul unafraid and divine —
With that soul that was ever divine —
The pioneer fathers are passing,
And this thing ye shall take for a sign.
For with every white head that is sinking
For with every aged heart that is dead.
Ye are losing gold threads in the linking
jf traditional days that are sped,
The epic dumb eternally sped —
With the gift of their stern tribulation
Which now carpets the path that ye tread.
There is never a zephyr soft-sighing,
Where whe primeval forest once lay,
There is never a patriarch dying, ^
But a story is pa-ssing away — ,v
And a glory is passing away —
Of the humble who founded a nation
In the travail and stress of the day.
Though the shanty that crouched in the clearing
Ls a ghost in the wrack of the past.
Though your pioneer fathers are nearing
The dark trail that is blazoned the last —
Though they pass down this trail that is last —
Yet their spirits will hover above ye,
In the wind and the stars they will love ye.
For the fight thoy will strengthen and prove ye.
Till tii<y mould ye the pioneer cast.
CAMKRON KESTEU.
IV
ERRATA
Page IV; second stanza,
5th
line should read, "The dumb
epic
eternally sped".
Page 57; line 7, read
■but-
terfly valve."
Page 136; last line.
read
"185.5" for "1853."
INDEX
Page
Foreword _ _ - — 1
I — What it Looked Like — ^ _ 5
II_What Was Going On _ _ _ 22
III — Building and Clearing _ _ _ _ 29
IV— The First Settlement 43
V — No, 3 Company, 31st Regiment 72
VI — Development and Decay _ 86
VII— The Churches _ 110
VIII— The Schools -:» 136
IX— The Public Libraries -.... 155
X — Societies and Social Amusements _ 165
XI — A Meritorious Record •* 189
XII— A Few of the First 194
XIII— Conclusion _....„ 237
ILLUSTRATIONS
Plate I. — 1. Rev. Robert Dewar. 2. Rev. Alexander Hunter.
3. Robert Grierson. 4. William P. Telford. 5.
Thomas Lunn. 6. Thomas Rutherford.
Plate IJ.— 1. James S. Ross. 2. Dr. William Lang. 3. William
Brown. 4. Robert Elliot. 5. David Armstrong.
6. Gideon Harkness.
Plate III.— 1. Andrew Sibbald. 2. Walter Aitken. 3.
William Johnstone. 4. James Gibson. 5. Hugh
Reid. 6. John Couper.
V
FOREWORD
History is a fable agreed upon, said Napoleon. Thei^
could be no more cynical comment upon the reliability of
histor>', yet the truth of it is largely borne out by what
historians have had to say about the man himself who made
it. Hardly two of them have agreed in their estimate of his
chai'acter. History is bunk, says America's wealthiest auto-
mobile manufacturer and we might be surprised if we knew
the number of wise men who agree with him, to a certain
extent at least, when they look around and see the evil ways
of men and how they so wantonly have disregarded its plain
teachings.
The task of the historian, as one of the greatest of them
has pointed out, is traditionally a thankless one. Not for
him are the sweets of popular applause, the emoluments of
office, the decorations awarded the soldier or the diplomat.
Unseen and alone he assumes his voluntary label's. Then
commence long toilsome years of the most arduous and ex-
acting reseai'ch and when this is completed there still re-
mains the tedious routine of arrangement and compilation.
At length the result of his labors is given to the world and
then he samples the first bitter taste of ingratitude. His
facts as he has found them are assailed as distorted and mis-
leading, if not openly mendacious. When he ventures upon
the field of deduction from these facts however, where he is
a lawful subject for criticism, he finds that there are not
two, but twenty sides to every question, and he finds a critic
for every side of it ready and anxious to fall upon him and
tear to shreds the issue of years of painful effort.
This little volume, however, does not rise to the dignity
of history. The author fortunately knows his limitations ;
aside from this he has neither the time, the patience or the
—1—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
money to treat the subject as it deserves. It is an attempt
to portray the first settlement of the Leith and Annan dis-
trict in the township of Sydenham, the general appearance
of the country when the first settlers arrived, the institu-
tions they founded, secular and religious, the privations in-
evitable in the lot of pioneers they endured, their social
amusements an'd the work they undertook and acomplished.
It is, in short, a retrospective sketch of the first twenty-five
years in the life of the community, which, as in the life of an
individual, are often the most important. There will also be
brief biographical sketches of a number of the most repre-
sentative men who took an active and leading part in the
general affairs of the district and guided its destinies at that
time. The importance of the beginnings of things in the
lives of men and communities is seldom over estimated.
Men with the true instinct of the artist, with an eye to
see and a heart to feel the joys and the tragedies of life have
gone into just such country places and, with the materials
found there, have woven stories that have stirred the hearts
of their fellows to their innermost depths.
Yet even a sketch as limited in scope as the present one
will be open to criticism. Anachronisms will be discovered.
Errors in time and place will be pointed out. It will suffice
to say that the facts as stated therein are as nearly authen-
tic as it has been humanly possible to ascertain them.
It will also be subject to another form of criticism.
*'What, in the name of common sense," some will say "is the
use of raking up and reviving these memories of seventy and
eighty years ago I We are living in the present, not the
past. Let us act in the living present then, and leave the
dead past to bury its dead. Surely it is vanity and vexation
of spirit to indulge something which at the best is only sick-
ly sentimentality, in whicli there is neither use or profit."
The best answer to this is that, aside from the interest
many good people feel in the lives of their forebears, the
9
FOREWORD
generation that has no respect for the memory of its pre-
decessors and feels no pride in their achievements will
hardly be accorded any respect by those that follow it.
Posterity has always had its rights, even if they have not
arrived upon the scene and in turn it will have its duties to
perform, altho it may be remai'ked here that helping to pay
the debt incurred in the greatest of all wai's does not seem
to us as being among those duties. When President Roose-
velt first enunciated his far reaching policy for the conser-
vation of national resources as a duty the American people
owed to their posterity, he was frequently met with the
brutal enquiry from many so-called captains of industry who
were exploiting, or rather wasting, the nation's natural
wealth, "What has posterity ever done for us" ? It is a bad
thing for both men and nations when they begin to live in
and for the present moment only. Their finish is not far
distant for in the chain of responsibility that links up the
past with the future we owe a duty to both and we will dis-
regard that debt at our peril.
It was once said of a great Englishman by one of his
countrymen, that it was not so much what he did as what he
was that made him great. The pioneers of Sydenham per-
formed a great work, but after all it was not so much what
they did as what they were that constitutes their claim to
the gratitude of those of us who have come after them. It
will always be so as long as example is more powerful than
precept.
Leith,
March 24th. 1924.
—3-
CHAPTER I.
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
Had an inhabitant of the planet IMars, supposing Mai'S
to be inhabited, visited that section of Grey County now
known as Sydenham township in the year 1830, and after a
careful survey have formed an ineffaceable impression of
its general appearance and, after returning to Mars had
visited us again eighty years later, there are several strik-
ing changes he would have noticed at once. Time has
wrought these changes so gradually that it is almost im-
possible for the younger generation to visualize a correct
mental picture of the country as it appeared at that time.
First he would have noticed the disappearance of the
forest in large part and the evidences of civilization in the
shape of bams, houses, outbuildings, fences, roads and all
other public and private improvements that follow the work
of man's hands. Then, in all probability he would have
noticed the lowering of the lake level, for this has been so
pronounced it could hardly have escaped his attention. Then
he would have noticed the complete disappearance of many
of the smaller streams an*d the dried up aspect of the larger
ones. Then, if he had stayed long enough in the first place
and had been of an acutely observant nature he would have
noticed that the climate was slightly warmer. The average
temperature on this North American continent always rises
about five degrees after the forest has been cleared, for
obvious reasons.
These are the greatest physical changes that have fol-
lowed the advent of civilization here as in all parts of the
country lying adjacent to the Great Lakes. They have not
added to the beauty of the region but they were inevitable.
—5—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAJVI
We cannot have the wild beauty of the wilderness and the
comforts of civilization at the same time. One of the oldest
settlers on the Lake Shore Line who came to it in childhood
has said it was the newness and wildness of the country
that made the first few yeai's he spent there the most en-
joyable of his life. It was Nature at its best, because
unadorned.
The streams were always full. There were no spring
floods, because the snow melted slowly in the forest shades,
the frost left the ground just as slowly and even in mid-
summer the heat of the sun's rays was lost in the thick
foliage that shaded the ground everywhere. The smaller
streams were ai'ched overhead by spreading branches of the
trees on their banks and their courses were often choked
with a mass of tree trunks in all the stages of decay. As
they became completely rotted, they were torn away by the
current. There is a passage in a poem by Bryant, in which
the noble red men eloquently kiescribes the rivers of the
wilderness, before they had shrunken at the destruction
wrought by the inroads of the white man's civilization.
Before these fields were shorn and tilled,
Full to the brim our rivers flowed ;
The melody of waters filled
The fresh and boundless wood ;
And torrents dashed and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.
All these have passed, and with them have passed the
numerous saw and grist mills, erected by the early settlers.
They served well in the day of small things, but they have
given way to the gigantic electric plants which have dammed
our greatest rivers in the quest of power.
The steadily lowering water level on the Great Lakes
is so alarming that it is engaging the attention of our most
eminent engineers, as well as the United States and Can-
—6—
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
adian Governments. Just how much the level of Georgian
Bay has fallen since the general settlement on its shores
nobody seems to know exactly. But it has been consider-
able. Along the western shore of the lower peninsula of
Michigan where authentic records have been kept, the level
of Lake Michigan has fallen eight feet since 1837. There
are reasons for believing it has fallen as much or more in
Owen Sound. The oldest settlers pointed out high water
marks of the fifties and sixties of last century that seem
almost incredible. About the only people who have bene-
fitted by the change are the dredging contractors. It has
ruined the appeai-ance of the foreshore along the
waterfront of Sydenham, where the lake shallows
so gradually in approaching the shore, and from
present indications its old beauty will never be restored. It
has destroyed many small hai'bors, Lunn's Landing, Coffin
and Johnston Harbors among them, where the largest fish-
ing boats could once find good anchorage. First they became
marshes, then as the water steadily receded they took on
the appearance of pasture patches. In the olden days it
was impossible for the foot traveler to make his way along
the beach without resorting to wading at many pxjints, or
making a detour into the adjoining swamp. But "the lonely
shore" of that time had a beauty all its own that compen-
sated for all such inconveniences, a beauty we have lost for-
ever in the steady march of modern progress.
From all accounts that have been handed down to us,
it appears the country lying between Owen Sound and Cape
Rich was practically a vast unbroken bush. There is men-
tion in some early documents of patches of prairie, but they
must have been exceeding rare. Bush fires must have been
also of the rarest occurance for many years before the first
settlers came, or, if there were such bush fires, they were
insignificant and destroyed little of the standing timber.
They were numei'ous enough after the pioneers came.
—7—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Many of them did positive good, others a great deal of
damage. The swamps were in many places simply impass-
able, rendered so by a tangled mass of fallen tree trunks
lying in every direction, evergreens broken off many feet
from the ground, and a general confusion that defies des-
cription. Fire was the settler's most valuable ally in clear-
ing out such places ; otherwise the labor involved in clearing
them would have been unprofitable. But even in the higher
land where the hardwood was found, the underbrush was
thick almost everywhere. There were no open ai'ches of the
forest over which poets have raved. An old record shows
that two homesteaders spent the whole summer of 1845, in
underbrushing, just south of Annan, and this in the midst
of heavy hardwood timber. So practically every foot of the
: land had to be cleared and the first task that confronted the
pioneer after he had built his little shanty "in the heart of
the forest primeval" seemed an appalling one. Yet under
the terms of the land settlement acts of those days, one third
of the homestead that had been allotted him must be clear-
ed and under crop before he could be granted a patent for
his land by the Crown.
There was a wide variety of hardwood timber, the
maple prevailing in most places. Beech, birch and ash were
found in various states of profusion according to the locality.
The rock elm grew to a considerable height and as it can-ied
that height so well, and dressed so easily it was in great de-
mand for bai'n timber. In the swamps could be found
almost every variety of evergreen that flourishes in these
latitudes, spruce, cedar, tamarac, balsam, to mention a num-
ber of them, with a few pine. The hemlock was found on
both high and low lying land. This timber was all rather
an unusual size, in fact the Annan district was noted as
having some of the finest in the County of Waterloo,
as it was then known. But the soft elm easily overtopped
them all. It grew to a remarkable size in places and they
—8—
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
were quite numerous also, as many as four or five being
found in a single acre, and of the largest kind. In the
winter of 1847-48 one was cut down about two miles south
of Annan, which measured seven feet in diameter on the
stump, and fully eight feet at the ground. Its height was
estimated at about ninety feet. Four expert choppei*s com-
menced work on it one morning just after a winter's break-
fast, and shortly after high noon it came to earth. Three
of the c hoppers had been at work on it for half an hour the
previous evening. The butt was gnarled and fifteen feet
were cut off, then four rail cuts each twelve feet long, the
first one of which made one hundred and five rails, were
saved, the top being left to rot. Another large elm, about
the same size in diameter, but shorter, was in later years
cut down on a farm about three miles northwest of Leith.
With four choppers at work, it took five hours to fell. An-
other tall elm which stood "like a city on an hill which can-
not be hid" about the same distance from Annan as the first
one, could be seen from a point fifty miles distant on
Georgian Bay, the late Captain John MacNab being the
authority for the statement. These were the largest trees
ever found in Sydenham.
How old were these monarchs of the forest ? Nobody
knows, or at least there is no record of anyone attempting
to number their years. The age of trees is a subject on
which there will always be more or less conjecture. Some
oaks in England are said to have been standing at the time
of the Norman Conquest. The author read recently an ac-
count of a tree chopped down in central New York State in
1854. About half way from the circumference to the centre
t)ie choppers came upon a gash made by an axe and counted
one hundred and seventeen rings outside of it. The axe had
been driven into the tree in or about 1737, and the tree had,
it was estimated, been growing one hundred years earlier
than that. There are good grounds for believing these elms
—9—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
on the Lake Shore line were fully as old. It takes a lot of
yearly growths to make a diameter of seven feet, even if the
elm is a fast growing tree. It may be accepted that these
trees had passed the sapling stage in the days of Cromwell
and of England's great Civil War. They had looked down
upon two centuries of solitude, yet they were destroyed in
the course of a few hours.
It may be well to step aside a moment and comi>are
these trees with the largest found in the world. Such a
comparison makes them look like a lot of pygmies. Just
how great the disparity was, may be worth a considerable
digression here.
In the year 1850, a party of hunters were pushing theii*
way through the then unexplored wilderness of what after-
wards became Calaveras County, in California. One of them
who had gotten considerably in advance of his companions,
suddenly broke into a valley, about one hundred and sixty
acres in extent, rather it might be styled an ampitheatre.
He was the fii-st man to see what became famous as the "Big
Trees of Calaveras County." At least if white men had ever
gazed on them before, the record has not survived. The
group were solitary specimens of their race. By actual
count there were about ninety-two of them, and they grew
in a small valley of little more than one hundred and fifty
acres, as noted, and within two hundred arwi forty miles of
San Francisco. Their discovery was a little more than a
year later than the chopping down of the famous elm in
Sydenham ; some of them, alas ! soon shared a like fate.
Their colossal proportions and the impressive silence of
the surrounding woods created a feeling of awe among the
hunters ; they walked around the huge trunks and gazed
reverently at tlicir magnificant proportions, then retunied
to the nearest settlements with stories of what they had just
seen. These stories, however, were laughed at as incred-
ible until they were confiiTned by actual measurement.
—10—
PLATE I.
1. Rev. Robert Dewar. 2. Rev. Alexander Hunter. 3. Robert (Irier.son.
4. William P. Telford. 5. Thomas Lunn. 6. Thomas Rutherford.
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
The trees were immediateb^ named Washingtonians, though
some of the savants of San Fi'ancisco endeavered to change
this to Wellingtonians, because some patriotic British bot-
anist availing himself of the discovery hastened to appro-
priate the name for the conqueror at Waterloo. The basin
or valley in which they stood was damp, with here and there
pools of water, into which some of the largest trees extended
their roots. These gigantic conifers were of the species
known by naturalists as the sequoia. A town called Murphy
was in those days the end of the stage coach lines and from
here to the "Mammoth Tree Hotel", erected to accomodate
the visitors to the newly discovered world's wonders, was
a distance of only fifteen miles.
Adjoining the hotel stood the stump of the "Big Tree",
whicli v*'as cut down in 1853. It measured ninety-six feet
in circumference, showing a smooth surface and seventy-five
feet solid circumference of timber on the stump, on which
tliere VN-as ample space for thirty-two dancers, for it was
often used for that pui*pose. Theatrical performances were
also given upon it, the Chapman Family and Robinson
P'amily, well known entertainers of the time, giving them
there in 1855. This monster was cut down by boring with
long and powerful augurs and sawing the spaces between
— -an act of vandalism as ingenious as the Chinese I'efine-
ment in cruelty in pulling the nails of criminals witli pin-
cers. It required the labor of five men twenty-five days
to effect its fall, the tree standing so nearly perpendi-
cular tfiat the aid of v/edges was invoke/d to complete the
destruction. But even then the immense mass resisted all
efforts to overthrow it, until in the blackness of a tempest-
uous night it began to groan and sway in the stonn like an
expiring giant. It succumbed at last to the elements whkh
alone could complete from above what the human ants had
commenced below, and great was the fall thereof. Its fall
was heard at Murphy, fifteen miles distant and was like an
—11—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
earthquake's shock. When the great trunk went down it
buried itself twelve feet in the mire of a creek hard by, with
its two thousand cords of wood. Not far from where it
stood were two giant members of this family known as "The
Guardsmen;" the mud splashed nearly a hundred feet high
on their trunks. As it lay on the ground it measured three
hundred and two feet clear of the stump and broken top.
I.arge trees had been snapped like pipe stems in its fall, and
the woods around were filled with splinters and debris. On
its levelled surface were afterwards built the barroom and
bowlinn" alley of the hotel.
One of the most interesting of the group was called the
"Mother of the Forest". It was the loftiest of the grove,
rising to the height of three hundred and twenty-seven feet*
straight and beautifully proportioned, and in 1860 supposed
to be the largest tree in the world. It was ninety feet in
circumference and into its trunk could be cut an apartment
as large as a common sized parlor and as high as the archi-
tect chose to make it, witliout endangering the tree or dam-
aging- its outward appearance. A scaffolding was built
around this tree, for the purpose of stripping its bark for
exhibition abroad. With damnable industry this was at
last accomplislied for a distance of over one hundred feet
from the ground, and it was effected with as mucli neatness
as a troop of jackals display in cleaning the bones of a dead
lion. Such was its vitality however tliat it continued annu-
ally for about five years to put forth green leaves, when the
blanched and withered limbs showed that nature had done
its best but was exhausted.
The largest of the whole gi'oup paled, iiowever, before a
prostrate giant known as the "Monarch of the Forest." This
monster ha'd long before bowed his head in the dust, but
v/hat magnificence in ruin was his ! He measured one hun-
dred and twelve feet in circumference at the base ar.d forty-
two feet in circumference at a distance of three hundred
—12—-
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
feet from t!ie roots, where it was broken off short in its fall.
The upper portion was greatly decayed, beyond this break,
but judging from the average height of the others, this tree
must have towered toward the heavens to at least four hun-
dred and fifty feet. A chamber, or burned cavity, extended
through the trunk two hundred feet, broad and high enough
for a person to ride through on horseback ; a pond deep
enough to float a river steamboat stood in this great exca-
vation during the rainy season. The mind can scarcely con-
ceive its astonishing dimensions ; language fails to give an
adequate idea of it. It was, when standing, a pillar of
timber that overtopped all other trees on the globe. "To
simply read of a tree, four hundred and fifty feet high"
observes a contemporary, "we are struck with large figures,
but we hardly appreciate the height without some compar-
ison. Such a one as this would stretch across a field twentj'-
seven rods wide. If standing in the Niagara chasm at Sus-
pension Bridge, it would tower two hundred feet above the
top of the bridge, and would be ninety feet above the cross
of St. Paul's, and two hundred and thirty feet above the
Monument. If cut up for fuel, it would yield three thousand
cords, or as much as would be yielded by sixty acres of good
wood-land. If sawed into two-inch boards, it would yield
about two million feet, and furnish enough three inch plank
for thirty miles of plank road. This will do for the product
of one little seed, less in size than a grain of wheat."
Many of our readers will doubtless smile at the above,
and mentally note it kiown as a piece of the grossest Ameri-
can exaggeration. They are mistaken. Out of many descrip-
tions the author has read of these mam.moth trees, all of
them which coincide remarkably as to their size, he has quot-
ed from one which appeared in Cassell's Family i\Iagazine for
1860, and a British magazine of such standing as Cassell's
could be relied upon to give its readers nothing but the cold
facts. It was estimated by scientists who were authorities
—13—
REMINISCEXCES OF NORTH SYDENHA.AI
on the subject that the prostrate giant known as the ''Mon-
arch of the Forest" had been standing four thousand years
ago. Perhaps it had. It is dangerous to deny sucli things
for there are stranger things in this world than iu"e dreamed
of in our philosophy. As far as actual bulk was concerned
these trees were in all probability the largest ever seen in
the world. But were they the highest ? Cheer up, gentle
reader, for the worst is yet to come.
Late in 1884, James Anthony Froude, the eminent
English historian and litterateur, left London on a trip round
the world, going by way of the Cape to Australia and New
Zealand. He has left us a splendid naiTative of the journey,
which was made in a leisurely manner and with r.mpb lime
for observation, in a volume called "Oceana". Like many
another valuable volume, it must have had a small svAe, as
copies of it are rather rare. While in Australia he visited
all the large cities ; Melbourne was then the largest. VVliile
there he heard tales from enthusiastic ]>,Ielbournians of a
wondrous sight to be seen not far from the city, and, as the
city's guest of honor, he was pressed to go and see it. He
consented. Conveyances were secured after the journey by
rail had ended by the party that had accompanied him, and
after a journey of about ten miles during which the scenery
had grown wilder and wilder, imd the trees steadily taller,
at a point near the sources of the River Yarra and about
ninety miles from Melbourne, the distinguished Englishman
wa''. sliov.n trees standing in n valley which he says aver-
aged from three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet
higli.
Tlicse trees could not be counted in the course of a few
minuL's like those in California. They were there in regi-
men*.-: ;vnd brigades, towering w) in the shelter of a moun-
tain like "the tall masts of some great Amiral." In fact
Fioude attributed their great height to their sheltered
—14—
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
position aiid the ricli nature of the soil. The hand of the
destroyer had been busy and several of the largest levelled,
but the government of Victoria had intervened, not alto-
gether effectually however. These trees were of the gum-
wood species, or the far-famed Australian eucalyptus, Con-
sideiing their height, their girth was not remarkable ; the
visitor spanned the circumference of one with his arms, but
the result by a lapse of memory is forgotten. It is certain
however, they were not nearly so bulky as the Calaveras
County trees. But there were a few among them that ran
up to four hundred and twenty and thirty feet, and Froude
was assured that one had been felled that measured four
hundred and sixty feet. There was no supposition about the
height of this one, as in the case of the long-fallen tree in
California ; it had actually been measured, and, as far as
is known, it had been the highest tree in the world. It was
but natural that a man of Froude's mentality should have
been profoundly impressed by such a sight. There are some
poor unfortunates among us who, like the author, have
never seen the Woolworth building, but as between seeing it
and one of these mighty gum-trees, our choice would at once
fall to the latter. How long had their towering tops waved
in the gales of the passing centuries and "held their dark
communion with the cloud ?" Froude does not even ven-
ture to guess, but as geologists assure us that Australia's
surface is probably the oldest land on the face of the globe,
forming as it did part of a long-lost Antartic continent,
their birth may have reached back into the remotest ages of
antiquity. Ancient empires had risen, flourished and de-
cayed, civilizations had waxed and waned while they were
adding cubits to their statue. At last, after Tasman, came
the adventurous Captain Cook, and after him came the
white man with his genius for destruction. It was nothing-
short of a crime against man's better nature that even one
of such trees should have been destroyed. They must have
—15—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
whispered to the beholder, like Addison's stars of the firma-
ment,
"The Hand that made us is divine."
So if we were to take one of these huge elms in Sydenham,
and piled on top of it in their natural position three others
of like size, the height of the topmost one would still have
fallen below the crests of some of the sequoias of California
or the gum-trees of Australia. Had they been standing
alongside them, they would have looked like saplings. Sir
Walter Scott once saw a vessel unloading squared timber
from America, at Leith ; he gazed long and earnestly at the
sight and remarked to a companion that it must be a great
privilege to live in a country where timber grew to such
dimensions. What he would have said had he seen the Cali-
fornian trees standing on their native heath we can only
surmise, but his incomparable genius in poetic description
would doubtless have risen to the event.
But the trees in S.\^^denham were large enough and num-
erous enough in all conscience, for the men who were clear-
ing the land, a process that will be described at length in a
later chapter. In a very literal sense one could not see the
forest for the trees. In their wild fastnesses, more parti-
cularly on a cloudy day, it was the easiest matter in the
world to become hopelessly lost. This was the unfortunate
predicament in which two young fellows, James Ross
and Henry Taylor, the latter eleven years old, found them-
selves while hunting cattle one afternoon, as late as May,
1846. They spent the night in the woods and the alarm of
their relatives is easily imagined. The blowing of horns and
ringing of cowbells echoed along the Lake Shore, yet tliese
lads were within from two to three miles of their homes.
Trails to the various shanties from the roads were marked
by blazes on the trees and had to be carefully followed. The
trackless wilderness of the North American forests has
—16—
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
never before or since been so accurately and vividly des-
cribed as it was by Fenimore Cooper in his Leather-stocking-
(Tales. In this respect, liowever, he has no inconsiderable
•rival in Francis Parkman, the historian of Canada under
the French, and our readers are urged to consult both
if they wish to form any adequate picture of the wilds of
North Sydenham, as they met the eye before the coming of
the first pioneers.
Into this unbroken wilderness came the vanguard of the
stream of settlers, along about 1840, like a band of destroy-
ing angels. After erecting their first rude shanties, the
newcomers turned upon the trees as they would have upon
natural enemies. The forest had to be cleared and convert-
ed into fai'ms if they wished to live long upon the land. The
process would have been viewed with the most mournful
feelings by the lumbei-men of this day and age, had the}^
been able to witness it. One by one these upstanding giants
and their smaller brethren down to the tiniest sapling dis-
appeared, as acie after aci"e was cleared. They were cut
into convenient log lengths, piled up in huge heaps and,
after a season, the fire brand was applied. It seems like
criminal waste to us now that the finest hardwood timber,
often three and four feet in diameter, should meet such a
fate. But had we been in their position would we have done
diflferently ? The pity is that it had to be. Tliese men could
not foresee the days of coal strikes and fuel famines. They
never dreamed that maple flooring would one day sell at one
hundred and ten dollars a thousand. Probably they knew
nothing of the economist's theory of the value of utility and
even if they had it would not have made an iota's difference
to them. Ila'd tliey been men of wealtli and leisure,
they might have looked into the future and seen the day
when such standing timber would be worth countless wealth,
but men of wealth and leisure do not move into the back-
woods. So the indiscriminate slaughter went on. On some
—17—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
fai'ms ten acres were cleared in a single season, altho such
cases were rai"e. It was sinful waste to clear some of the
land, even in that day and time, because it has been fit for
nothing since. Afforestation has as yet never been seriously
attempted in Sydenham, but the time is coming when men
will be found disinterested enough to replant to trees, some
at least of the land that never should have been cleared, and
leave it to their children to reap where they have sown.
Probably there were men among the pioneers who felt
some stirrings of contrition when they saw these splendid
trees, many of them their Creator's finest masterpieces in
their class, go crashing to earth. But the same devastation
was proceeding wherever the pioneer found a foothold, and
in some places with far less justification. In that "far-
flung" (to adopt a Kiplingesque word that has been worked
to death) outpost of empire, New Zealand, the destroyer
has been at work in the vast forests that cover portions of
the North Island. The insatiate greed of commercialism and
the destruction its wanton vandalism has wrought in these
same forests, possibly as fine as will be found anywhere, has
stirred the indignation of an Auckland poet.
Gone are the forest tracks, where oft we rode,
Under the silver fern-fronds, climbing slow,
In cool, green tunnels, though fierce noontide glowed
And glittered on the treetops far below.
There, 'mid the stillness of the mountain road,
We just could hear the valley river flow,
Whose voice through many a windless summer day
Haunted the silent woods now passed away.
Aye, but scan
The ruined beauty, wasted in a night,
The blackened wonder God alone could plan,
And builds not twice ! A bitter price to pay
Is this for progress — beauty swept away.
—18-^
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
Another matter should be touched upon briefly l^efore
closing this chapter. There is a popular impression that in
the earliest years of settlement, the woods fairly swarmed
with game and Lake Manitou, the euphonious name given to
the noble sheet of water by the redman, and now known un-
der the rather insipid one of Georgian Bay, just as freely
swarmed with salmon trout. This is hardly correct.
Game was much more plentiful then than now, of
course. But the fur bearing animals of the forest, it should
always be remembered, followed the law of the sui'vival of
the most fit. They preyed upon one another and thus kept
down the natural increase. No doubt there were unusually
hard wintei's, when many of them must have died of actual
starvation. For many years after the first settlers came
the game seemed to run in cycles, like the seasons. Thus
there is mention in some early memoirs of how the black
squirrels were on two occasions so numerous as to be a
nuisance. They were much prized for making pies. A Leith
I'esident killed four with a rifle, in walking from the dock to
the village. Again, there were years when the red squirrel
came in myriads. There is mention of one hundred and
thirty being killed in one day with stones. Like King David,
the man who wrought such execution must have been a
great shot with a pebble. On another occasion, a party
coming from Owen Sound by boat, passed through an im-
mense swarm of red squirrels, at Squaw Point, swimming
from the west to the east shore of the bay. There were a
few deer and an occasional bear, but they were soon driven
out as settlement progressed. The partridge was plentiful
at first, and was almost a daily item in the bill of fare in
manj'- a shanty. It was roasted before an open fire on a spit
that revolved slowly, being basted meanwhile. The first
settlers used in after years to tell stories of the flights of
the wild, or blue pigeon, that stagger the imagination, but
—19—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
as all these stories agreed they must have been true. They
darkened the face of the sun and broke down the limbs of
trees when they alighted for the night. It is now, to all
intents and purposes, as extinct as the dodo.
The same story applies to the fisherman's sport, in fish-
ing from the steams or on the bay alike. Every stream
seems to have been a trout stream, wherever the trout came
from. They were certainly not stocked. But the trout was
a much sought after delicacy and in the first twenty-five
years it was largely fished out, altho good catches were made
at later dates. The gradual drying up of the smaller streams
in many cases completed what the angler had begun. In
some cases, such as at Shepherd's Lake, other fish like the
perch were stocked and they played havoc with the trout.
As to the shoal fishing on the bay, the earliest accounts are
rather confusing and contradictory. For one thing the
trolling tackle used was of the crudest description and would
be laughed at now. Some large hauls were undoubtedly made
and the trouble must have been to find a market for the
salmon trout, the fish found by far the most frequently on
the shoals. The writer remembers a conversation he had
with a member of the Desjardine family, famous fishermen
of the earliest times, in 1896. He said that one of his uncles
had set a gang of nets at Johnston's Harbor one night late
in the fall, just twenty-five years previously, which would
be about 1871, and that he lifted next morning for not a
single fish. It is our own conclusion that there was as good
fishing around Vail's Point thirty-five j'ears ago as at any
previous time. This is a peridd that comes within our own
recollection. In the fall of 1887, we saw any quantity of sal-
mon trout, large and small, thrown on the fishing tugs at
eight and nine cents each. The shoals swarmed with them.
On one point, however, all the earlier accounts agree. The
average size of the salmon trout was much larger then than
now.
—20—
WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE
The largest single catch of which the author knows and
of which there is authentic record, was made by the late
John Gibson of Leith, with two or three companions, in a
heavy yawl which was familiarly known on the shoals from
Vail's Point westward, forty and fifty yeai"s ago. This
catch was made along about 1884 or 1885. Mr, Gibson and
his crew were enjoying fair fishing when the wind and the
sea began gradually rising, and, as was quite usual in such a
change of weather, the fish kept biting better and better.
They saw at last a chance of making the century mark and
resolved to play the game until driven ashore by the
weather. When they reached the boathouse that night,
after a stiff battle with the elements, one hundred and one
fish were thrown ashore. Without doubt there were larger
catches than this one made, at one time or another, but
there is positive and authenticated record of it, whereas
many of the large catches boasted of are the figments of a
feverish imagination.
Such was Sydenham eighty-four years ago. The
picture is imperfect, of course, but it will give the reader
some idea of the task that awaited those who invaded this
unbroken wilderness, in the hope of making homes for
themselves.
-21-
CHAPTER II.
WHAT WAS GOING ON
At the opening of each successive session of the United
States Congress, the President sends to both the House of
Representatives and the Senate, what is known as his Mess-
age to Congress. In this he passes in review the foreign and
domestic pohcy of the nation, its relation with foreign
powers and recommends such legislation as he deems advis-
able. More particularly, however, he deals with the state
of the country and what is going on there at the time.
These messages are of course regarded as highly important
historical documents, and a history of the United States
since the Revolution could be written from them alone, as
the custom is as old as the Constitution itself.
Following such an illustrious example, it will be well
before proceeding with this narrative to take a look around
us and observe what was going on, not only in Canada, but
in the world at large, in and immediately preceding the
fourtli decade of the nineteenth century, when what we now
call Grey County was settled. Coming events are said to
cast their shadows before. Contemporary events, however,
act and react upon one another and their influence in affect-
ing decisions in the affairs of men is often not clearly re-
cognized at the time they happen. As an instance, some of
the events happening at this time were instrumental in
bringing many immigrants from the Old Land to Canada.
To begin with, then, in 1840 was solemnized the mar-
riage of Queen Victoria, of gracious memory, to Albert,
Prince of Saxe, Coburg-Gotha. England engaged in the
Opium War, — a moral mistake, as every one now admits.
This year also saw the adoption of penny postage in England,
—22—
WHAT WAS GOING ON
<me of the victories of peace. The following year was not-
able for the revolt in Afghanistan and the destruction of the
British forces during the retreat. In 1842, China was
thrown open to foreign trade with the world. The Boer
Kepublic of Natal was seized by the British and Sinde was
annexed to India. Quite a year of expansion for those times.
In 1845, Sir John Franklin sailed on his last search of the
Northwest Passage, the fate of his voyage remaining for
years in doubt. England and France made war on the
Argentine in this year. Next year the Oregon boundry dis-
pute with the United States was happily settled by treaty
and another war thereby avoided. This year will always
be remembered by reason of the potato rot and its concom-
mitants, famine an'd disease, which devastated Ireland and
the flood of Irish emigration to the United States, altho
Canada got its share. It was marked, too, by intense agit-
ation for the repeal of the Corn Laws, and on May 15th of
that year, the bill providing for their gradual abolition, spon-
sored by Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, passed
the House of Commons by a majority of ninety-eight. It was
the beginning of the down-fall of protection in England, and
the adoption of that policy of free trade, which has been so
consistently followed since and which was so strikingly
vindicated last year. With the possible exception of the
Reform Bill, it was by far the most important event in
England's domestic policy in last century, its
effects being unforseen even by the most
astute economists of the time. In 1847 the Irish
emigration to Canada reached its height. It was
left to the individual greed of ship-owners ; the United
States maintained sanitary regulations, which were to a
certain extent effectual, but in Canada there was no such
safe-guards. Some of the ships, says an eye-witness, looked
like the Black Hole of Calcutta and the poor emigrants
carrying with them from Ireland the seeds of disease, died
—23—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
like flies. They continued to die and to scattei- an infection
which meant almost sure death, after they had landed in
the country. At Montreal eight hundred emigi'ants died in
nine weeks and nine hundred died of 'diseases caught from
emigrants. There are few blacker chapters in Britain's
history than that of the famine in Ireland, and those who
prattle the pleasing platitude, that you cannot change
human nature, should ask themselves if we would tolerate
such a chapter being written again in this day and age.
No preparation was made for the reception or employment
of the emigrants, as they landed here. In six months the
deaths of the new arrivals was in excess of three thousand.
Yet even while they were leaving Ireland, grain was being-
exported from that country. The London Times pronounced
the neglect of Government to be an eternal stigma on the
British name. The Chief Secretary for Ireland was able to
inform the House of Commons, that of a hundred thousand
Irishmen that fled to Canada in a year, six thousand, one
hundred died on the voyage, four thousand, one hundred on
arrival, five thousand, two hundred in hospitals and one
thousand nine hundred in towns to whicli they had gone.
In a previous chapter, we have deplored tlie waste of trees
in our land when it was new, but here was a waste of human
life ten thousand times more deplorable. Some of these
emigrants came to the Irish Block of Sydenham, and a finer
class of settlers in a new land never left their native shores.
Thus was life wasted, not in a day of war, but of profound
peace. The Emigrant Society of Montreal, paints the result
as follows :
"From Grosse Island up to Port Sarnia, along the bor-
ders of our great river, up the shores of Lake Ontario and
Erie, wherever the tide of emigration has extended, are to Le
found one unbroken chain of graves where rcpo;^e fathers
and mothers, sisters and brothers in a commingled heap —
—24—
WHAT WAS GOING ON
no stone marking the spot. Twentj' thousand and upward
have gone down to their fate."
Is it possible to imagine a harder fate than that of tliese
poor emigrants, dying in poverty, far from their native land
and among strangers, and hastily buried in an unknown
grave ?
In 1848 the English crowded back the Boers in South
Africa, who emigrated and formed the Transvaal Republic.
And in 1849 the v/ondei-f ul story of Livingstone's discoveries
in Africa became known.
Turning to France we find in 1841, Louis Napoleon
attempting another revolution in his own favor. The re-
mains of Bonaparte, the Man of Destiny, left the lonely rock
of St. Helena, were borne to France and laid to rest in Paris,
amid scenes as solemn as they were impressive. Guizot,
whose historical works are his best monument, was Minister
of Foreign Affairs. This decade was, everything considerc'd,
rather an uneventful one in Finance. In 1843, as noted, she
joined England in war on the Argintine and in 1847 finally
subjugated Morocco. In February of 1848 began the work-
ingmen's revolution and a workingmen's con\ention gather-
ed in Paris. It was followed by a bloody communist out-
break, and still later in the year Louis Napoleon was elected
President of France.
This period has ever since been known in America as
"the roaring forties". They roared all right. Steamboat
boilers were bursting on the Mississippi and land booms
were bursting everywhere. It was an era of intense land
speculation. The country was growing and, generally speak-
ing, prosperous. It was also an era of execrably bad manners
among the people, if v»'e may believe Charles Dickens and
his "American Notes". It started in 1840 with the election
of William Henry Harrison as President ; he died a month
after his inauguration and Vice-President Tyler served out
his term as I'^i-eaidcnt. In 1812 the Seminole War ended and
—25—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENH.-UI
Fremont began his explorations of the Rocky Mountains.
James K. Polk was elected President in 1844, and in 1845
came the invention of the telegraph. The Slave Power
which had dominated national affairs for twenty-five yeai's
was at the apex of its authority, and this yeai" Florida and
Texas were admitted as slave states. In 1846 as a result
of its sinister machinations, began the Mexican War, "the
most indefensible war ever waged on a weaker nation" as
it was described by General Grant, who fought through it
as a second lieutenant. Elias Howe patented the sewing
machine at this time. In the following year the wai' was
brought to a "triumphal" conclusion, when the American
army entered Mexico City. In 1848 a huge piece of JMexican
territory was ceded to the United States as a result of it.
The Mormons settled Utah, and gold was discovered in Cali-
fornia. Hoary headed men among us remember this event
and the rush to the coast that followed it, in which several
Sydenham people joined. Zachary Taylor, who had served
under General Scott in Mexico was inaugurated President in
1849.
In Germany the greatest event in these ten years was
the Revolution of 1848. Russia had her greedy eyes fixed
on India and was spreading her tentacles everywhere in that
direction.
Here in the homeland we were pretty well recovered
from the shock of the MacKenzie rebellion and the hard
times following it. It was a wretched affair and reflected no
credit on either party, but perhaps a worse share on the
loyalists. Lount and Matthews, whose heroism ill deserved
the fate they suffered, have since been canonized by the Re-
form party, but they were misguided men, caught in the
nets of "circumstance, that unspiritual god" as Byron has
l^hrased it. But the uprising had a powerfu- anid unfavor-
able effect upon the settlement of Owen Sound and Syden-
ham township. They would have been settled foiu- yeai-s
—26—
WHAT WAS GOING ON
earlier but for its intervention. Mr. Charles Rankin, Pro-
vincial Land Surveyor, had received instructions in 1836 to
run the line now known as the Garafraxa Road, but Upper
Canada was thrown into such an uproar by the events of
1837, the proposed survey was abandoned until 1839. In
1838 Lord Durham, an able Liberal statesman, was com-
missioned to go to Canada and report upon the state of the
colony ; he was also appointed to the office of Governor
General, vacant at that time. On his return, the report he
submitted was made the basis of the union of Upper and
Lower Canada, the union being bitterly opposed by the
Family Compact, to whose various iniquities, which need not
be recounted here, the MacKenzie Rebellion was largely due.
The Family Compact was of course hostile to the proposed
union, as it foresaw the end of its reign of graft and misrule.
The Hon. John Beverly Robinson went to England and pub-
lished a counterblast to Lord Durham's report ; he was the
adviser, philosopher and friend of the dominant faction, but
he might as well have argued against the law of gravitation,
more especially when it was remembered that sixteen years
earlier he had strongly advocated the very union he now so
strongly opposed. In the session of 1839 a bill reuniting the
Canadas was introduced in the Imperial Parliament, by Lord
John Russell, which afterwards became law. Charles Poulett
Thomson was sent to Canada the following year, arriving in
October. He had been appointed Governor General in suc-
cession to Lord Durham and enjoyed that gentleman's con-
fidence thoroughly. He was a well informed man in mer-
cantile matters, having been bred to commercial pursuits
and was an ardent free trader. While neither a thorough or
profound statesman, he was a clever diplomat and politician
and had held the office of president of the board of trade in
the Russell administration. No better man could have been
entrusted with the task of steering the two provinces into
the bonds of union. His middle name was afterwards be-
—27—
REmNISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
stowed upon what in time became the chief business
throughfare of Owen Sound. The new task taxed all his
finesse and political agility. The difficulties he encountered
and surmounted need not be narrated here ; it will suffice
that he landed the ship of state entrusted to his cai'e safely
in port, and for his indefatigable and arduous services was
in August, 1840, raised to the peerage, with the title of
Baron Sydenham, of Sydenham in Kent and Toronto in
Canada. His labors had weakened his physical powers as he
was not a robust man, but he was ambitious and not dis-
posed to brood over his maladies. What was afterwards
Owen Sound took its first name from him, and it was only
natural that a township which was always so strongly liberal
in politics as Sydenham, should adopt the name in its turn.
The MacKenzie rebellion and the union of the two Can-
adas were the most important events of that period, the
second foreshadowing the greater event of Confederation,
which was to come sixteen years later.
These are a few of the principal events in the world,
that were transpiring in the fourth decade of last century
and which agitated men's minds at the time. It was a
stormy time in Canada's political history ; the first election
after the union of Upper and Lower Canada was attended
by scenes of violence such as have never been seen before
or since on such occasions. The reins of power were slipping
from the grasp of the Family Compact, the very name of
which became an odious memory. About the only merit of
the MacKenzie rebellion was that it drew the attention of
the Imperial Parliment to the intolerable abuses that had
grown up under their despotic rule. Lord Durham should
be counted among the chief benefactors of our native
country, which from such unpromising beginnings has
grown, under wise statemanship, to be one of the strongest
props of empire.
—28—
CHAPTER III.
BUILDING AND CLEARING
It is our intention at this point of our story, to devote
a chapter to an attempted description of how the earhest
settlers set about building their first log houses after their
arrival and, when that task was completed, engaged in the
more arduous one of clearing up the land. These tasks were
gone about in a very crude manner when compared with our
modern methods. It was, as has been observe'd elsewhere,
the day of small things, but these things had to be before
they gave way to our larger ones. Our factory system with
its minute division of labor and immense production of com-
modities at reduced costs, has gradually developed from
simple methods and small beginnings, and even farming has
in the same fashion become a specialized business in which
the farmer more and more attempts to raise but one crop
and that with the least possible exertion of effort promising
the greatest returns. From the standpoint of economy and
conservation of energy this is a prudent policy, but it is to
be doubted if it has had a beneficial effect upon those who
do the actual manual labor, in the production of wealth in
its various forms. The human mind becomes too mucli like
a machine. Each man knows his task thoroughly, but that
task becomes more and more circumscribed as new inven-
tions and new processes displace hand labor with the
machine. P^actory life becomes a daily round of sameness
and deadly monotony, and life on the fai*m will in due time
inevitably follow it. There was no such monotony in the
life of the pioneers when every man had to be his own
mechanic, to a veiy considerable extent.
The basis of this description has been found in some
personal recollections committed to paper by a former resi-
—29—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
dent of the Lake Shore Line who came there as a boy of
thu'teen, in the spring of 1844, with his father and a large
family. We may be sure his experience tallied pretty closely
with that of his neighbors, who at that time were like the
proverbial hen's teeth, few and far between.
The first job tackled by the homesteader or the man
who bought his land outright from the Crown was the build-
ing of his house. Until that was accomplished, he usually
boarded with some neighbor who was kind enough to take
him in. When he had felled the trees that were cut up into
logs for the purpose, a bee was held among the surrounding
settlers and a log house of the size wanted, went up, fre-
quently in the most rapid manner, the walls being erected
in a single day. No architect's plans were required, nor
was any attempt made at ornament. Sometimes an elm or
a maple, from two to three feet in diameter was felled and
the butt cut, lying just as it had fallen, was used as the
foundation log for the front of the house. In the exact
centre, a cut about twelve inches deep and a convenient
width was made. This made a fine doorstep and marked the
location of the front door. There was also one window in
each of the side walls and a door in the back led into a lean-
to. The walls were of various heights, but mostly of one
storey of from ten to twelve feet. A pitched roof on these
walls covered what in these effete days we call an attic, but
was then known as either the upstairs or loft. Access to it
was gained by a perpendicular ladder.
In building these houses the most experienced woods-
men were usually assigned to the corners, of which there
were of course four. It was their part to mortise the log so
that it lay in its place securely and with as little open space
as possible between it and the log next lower. It was taken
as a mild form of disgrace if one of these four failed to hold
up his corner and kept the other three waiting, in fact these
—30—
BUILDING AND CLEARING
raising bees were a test of axemanship and speed which
often developed into a race. Sometimes the logs were hewed
square on the outside wall after the building' was finished
but this was uncommon. Had the windows not been neces-
sary, the houses, when the chinks were properly plastered
on both the out and in sides, would have been practically
airtight. When carefully built, they were warm and dry
but hardly sanitary. They frequently became infested by
cockroaches and it was almost impossible to get rid of them.
Sometimes, too, such a habitation was directly con-
nected with the log barns of the period, by a covered passage
leaiding from the back door outward to the latter. Mr.
Thomas Lunn, later mayor of Owen Sound, built and
occupied such a house on his farm, a mile northeast of Leith.
These passages must have been a comfortable convenience
on a cold w'inter moraing.
The interior arrangements were as simple as the out-
side. Sometimes there were no partitions at all, and one big
room served for kitchen, dining room, parlor or sitting room,
and bedrooms all in one. In other cases a carpet was
stretched on a pole through the centre of the house, doing
duty as a partition. Every inch of space was utilized and if
the family was sometimes cramped for it, they could always
look forward to the building of the new house as soon as
funds were available. The beds were often constructed so
that one could be stowed away under another in the day
time. Everything was primitive in the extreme. In one
case a settler on the Lake Shore felled a tree, levelled the
top surface of the stump carefully and then built his shanty
around it. The stump served as a table.
The fire place was usually built into the back wall. The
back of it was built up for three or four feet with stones.
Logs three and four feet long and from one to one-and-one-
half feet in diameter were used as back logs, and smaller
ones placed on top when the family retired for the night.
—31—
REr.ilNISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Such a fire lasted all night. In the morning- the remains of
the back log were drawn forward and more fuel piled on top.
Seldom was a really well built house ever cold. Two chains
were hung above the fireplace for holding pots and kettles.
A Dutch oven was often used for baking bread and
roasting meat. Cookstoves were still in the hazy future.
Another utensil used was a bake kettle, about fourteen
inches in diameter and six inches deep, with an ordinary pot
handle and standing on four short feet. After a good bed of
coals had been pulled to the front of the fire and dough
placed in this pot it was put on the fire, the lid was applied,
and also covered with coals and the whole left standing until
the bread was baked. The Dutch oven was a heavy sheet
iron affair, about two feet long, fourteen inches wide and
sixteen inches high, with open sides. It was placed on
the open fire and the heat circulated through the open
sides, cooking all kinds of pastry and meat. These are
now relics of an almost-forgotten age, but in their time
some splendid meals were cooked in them.
We had almost forgotten a highly important part of the
house, the roof. It was in most cases made of small bass-
wood logs, split exactly through the centre. Each half was
hollowed out from end to end, leaving a thickness on the
circumference of about six inches. This was done with the
axe, the log being scored down its whole length on the fiat
side and then chipped out, much as an Indian hollows a
canoe. A row of them was placed on the roof, hollowed side
up and running lengthwise from the eaves to the gable.
Another row was placed on these with the hollowed sides
down, the hollows of the second fitting over the joints in
the first row. Such a roof shed the elements splendidly for
a few years, but the bass wood logs were apt to crack and
warp in time.
Such a house met the first requisition of the settler — it
was cheap. An axe, a saw and a hammer were about all the
—32—
BUILDING AND CLEARING
tools used in erecting it. About the only sawn timber re-
quired was that used in the doors an'd window sash, the floor
generally being of cedar poles hewed down to one half their
diameter and laid down with the hewn side uppermost. The
close of a raising bee was almost always signalized by a
jollification in the new house if the weather permitted, and
at a neighbor's house if it did not. Some lone survivors of
these earthly habitations whose walls once echoed to the
mirth or sorrow of their inmates of long ago, are still to be
seen standing in delapidation and forloni loneliness in the
more remote districts, but their number is steadily decreas-
ing and soon the last of them will be swept away. It would
be well if these survivors could be removed bodily and one
of them placed in each of our cities where all could see, as an
example to the rising generation of jazz of the houses their
grandfathers were satisfied to live in. It might give some
of them a thoughtful hour.
His house finished, the settler turned his attention to
cutting, logging and burning the solid bush that surrounded
the tiny clearing made by the building of his home. The
ordinary layman may consider this as a task requiring a
maximum of muscle and a minimum of brains only. He is
profoundly mistaken. It was the Scottish economist, Adam
Smith, who first reminded his readers, about one hundred
and fifty years ago, that a certain amount of brain exercise
is required at the most menial tasks of manual labor and
that a college professor may make the sorriest kind of a
ditch digger, until he has mastered the know-how of such
work. A mechanic starting with nothing but a blue print
and the materials to construct a piece of machinery he never
saw before, is surely not only a brain worker but a manual
worker as well. White collared office men too often forget
this fact. Be that as it may, it still remains that a great
deal of headwork and handskill were called into play in the
clearing of bushland, at the time we speak of. In time it
—33—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
developed a fine type of wood craftsmen on the Lake Shore.
The labor was some times excitingly dangerous as well. The
chopper had to cultivate the art of concentration and have
his wits constantly about him.
Where the land was level and unbroken by any natural
obstacle, it was cleared in strips about forty rods long and
sixteen or more feet wide. An acre a day was a good day's
work for a yoke of oxen and five or six men, but it was
seldom even a man with a family could muster such a force.
Hilly land had one advantage, the log heaps were obviously
easfer to collect and pile. The larger logs were laid at the
bottom and smaller ones skidded on top of them. About
six or eight months afterwards, when they were dry enough
the whole was burned. Would that we had some of that
precious fuel now, when roots, rotten logs and limbs are
carefully piled and dried for the stove or furnace ! There
was considerable knack in hitching the chain to a log to be
pulled by the oxen to the heap. If the chain M'ere hitched
directly on top it meant a dead straight away pull, but if it
was made at the ground and to one side, and the oxen
started in a crosswise direction and away from the hitch,
the log rolled and of course this slight momentum gave it a
good start. Logs that could not be budged on a straight pull
were easily started this way. Some logs were hard to burn
i-egardless of how dry they were. The butternut was the
worst. The remains of a butternut log, partially burned,
were frequently dragged around to three and four subse-
quent fires before it was entirely consumed.
In chopping standing timber, the choppers after cal-
culating the proximity and relative distances between a
number of trees, sometimes started what they called a wind-
row. First one tree was cut about half through ; then an-
other standing at the right distance from it was cut through
in about the same manner, and so on back to the number of
six, eight or even ten trees. The trees were so chopped that
—34—
BUILDING AND CLEARING
in falling all would press to the same centre. Then, as last
tree, a big maple or elm was selected and chopped entirely
through. It fell upon the one nearest it, breaking it at the
stump ; this in turn fell upon the one next to it and so on
down the line, until the whole row of trees came down in a
promiscuous heap. When the operation was carried out
successfully a great deal of labor was saved. First, the
work of chopping the first six or eight trees was cut in half,
then the weight and momentum of the fall broke up the
branches and made the brushing up anid piling of them
easier. It was a moment of glorious excitement for the
choppers too, when eight or ten trees came to earth with a
crash like thunder.
In felling large trees singly it was a common practise
to have them fall over a stump, distant about half the height
of the tree chopped down from the same. Sometimes this
was so successful that the tree broke in three places — where
it struck the stump, once beyond that point and the top and
once again between the same point and where the chopper
had cut it through. Again this saved labor in cutting into
log lengths for piling and burning. It required nice judge-
ment and there was always the pleasurable anticipation of
the results of the fall, not always realized however. Deep
snow was a constant source of danger to the choppers in the
winter time. They had to arrange matters so that they
could make a quick getaway from a falling tree and when
the snow was unusually deep, paths away from the stump
had to be tramped in several directions, for it was not
always a certainty which way it would fall. Sometimes a
falling tree would lodge among its neighbors, hang there a
few minutes and then suddenly fall to the ground. Where
the timber was thick, in starting to fall it would break the
branches of those around it or its own and these branches
falling from a great height were another menace to the fel-
lers. At other times the tree, lodging in one close by, jump-
—35—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
ed back from its own stump and the chopper had to jump,
too, if it came in his direction and he valued his life. Again,
the butt would fly up and fall to either right or left of its
own stump, and again the chopper had to get in the clear.
When a gang of men were chopping together, constant
watch had to be kept for trees that swerved in falling, and
sometimes caught the unwary in the sweep of their
branches. Old settlers tell of running along tree trunks to
escape such traps or, if driven to it by immediate dangei',
jumping far out into tlie deep snow. Sometimes when they
had just escaped being caught, they were buried in the snow
thrown up by the falling trunk.
The reader will have gathered from the foregoing, some
of the perils of the first clearing of the land. It will also
strike him, if he is of a thoughtful nature, what an indis-
pensable tool the lowly axe was. In a land where there was
nothing but raw timber its uses were manifold ; it was
seldom for any length of time out of the hands of the
pioneer. In time this developed a fine race of axe men. The
middle aged settlers who came direct from the old land,
never became unusually expert in its use. Thej^ were two
accustomed to the stift' blow from the shoulder they had
acquired in many cases from using the pick, back in
the land of their nativity. But they brought young sons
with them or raised others after getting here, who reduced
the use of the axe until it was almost a science. It is a
pleasure to watch any man at work, when he is thorough
master of the tool he uses, and this was so of the early axe
men at Leith and on the Lake Shore Line.
There was an old saying, current in tliese localities at the
time, that if you heaved a rock out of a window in Leith it
would strike a Day-if not a Day a Cameron. The saying was
probably refurbished to do local duty from one that origin-
ated in Washington during the Civil War, that if you heaved
a rock out of a window it would strike a brigadier general.
—36—
BUILDING AND CLEAPwING
From this humorous exaggeration it will naturally be in-
ferred that the progeny of these two old and honorable
families, who played such an active and useful part in the
early upbuilding of the community, were numerous in the
land. While this is undoubtedly true, the chief claim to
distinction won bj^ the first comers bearing the names,
from the heavily timbered country of New Brunswick and
Nova Scotia and all the sons they raised, was that almost
without one exception they were known far and wide as
mighty men of valor with the axe. In their hands it became
a thing of beauty — a beauty of accuracy and speed in chop-
ping and hewing. They knew just where to place the stroke
and every stroke told. This was a gift in the days when
cross-cut saws were scarce, or crude V toothed affairs when
one had them. The lance toothed cross-cut still belonged to
the future. But give one of these men his favorite axe and
he would cut his way through anything.
There were many tricks with the axe. Sometimes two
choppers would start felling a tree, one upon each side of it.
When they had chopped as wide a scarf as the diameter of
the tree demanded, instead of continuing on around the
stump and starting another cut, they would simply turn in
their tracks and the new cut was begun. This necessitated
right-and-left-hand chopping, a gift far harder to acquire
than one would naturally suppose. A right-and-left-hand
boilermaker who, before the days of organized labor and uni-
form wage scales, used to draw more money than his less
fortunate mates, would appreciate the destinction.
There was another family on the Lake Shore which
acquired considerable celebrity in its use. Four of the sons,
all natives of Scotland who had left it at an early age, would
surround a huge maple witli their axes, forming a square.
The first blows were struck and as all had a good sense of
rythm, in the course of a minute or two a regular tempo was
caught, about one hundred and twenty to the minute, the
—37—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
strokes synchronizing as regularly as the drumbeats in a
march played by a concert band. No tree stood up long
under such an assault, sometimes continued regularly for a
quarter of an hour when the choppers had gained their
stride. Soon there came the first ominous crack, then a few
more strokes and then some more clear sunlight was let into
the forest. The scarves on such a stump after the tree had
fallen, would be as smooth as though jack planed. One day
in early times one of these choppers drove his axe into the
gash in a log one hundred times, striking the same spot
every time without the variation of one sixty-fourth of an
inch. Such men naturally prized a good axe. In the severe
frosts of winter it was apt to break when the wood was
frozen hard and the axe itself was chilled through. A hem-
lock knot was also destruction to the keen edge under such
circumstances. So the axe was ground shai-per in the sum-
mer and with a blunter edge in the winter.
The land was generally prepared for seed the first sea-
son after it was cleared. The surface was a rich vegetable
mould which the falling leaves of centuries had steadily
rotted upon and fertilized. It was not an inexhaustible
fertility however, altho some great crops were raised in the
early years. On the farm of Mr. Lunn, mentioned above,
about 1858 when the farm was leased by the Henry family,
then well known in the district, ten acres were cleared in
one season and this was sowed to wheat. This threshed
forty bushel to the acre which is a remarkable yield when
one considers the area of the clearing that must have been
covered by stumps. The hardwood stumps rotted slowly,
the basswood and elm stumps disintegrating in a few years.
Frequently the labor involved in clearing the land stirred up
the surface so that it needed no cultivation for the first crop.
At any rate turnips and wheat were frequently sown upon
such a surface and flourished "like a green bay tree". The
soil along the Lake Shore, however, never had the depth or
—38—
BUILDING AND CLEARING
such a favorable subsoil as that lying along the shore on
Concession A northeast of Leith and in latter times has
needed more fertilizing. After about thirty-five years of
cropping the first signs of exhaustion appeared and large
yields of wheat became a thing of the past. Will the same
be true of our Western Provinces ? The writer read an
account last winter of land at Brandon, Manitoba, which had
been under crop continuously since 1881 and was still going
strong and raising as large crops as it did in that year. In
many parts of the west as we learned from personal obser-
vation the farmers let the barnyard manure go to waste,
fhey assign two reasons for this: First, they dread the seed-
ing of the land in weeds; second, where manure is used in
many cases the rank growth of straw breaks >down and the
grain lodges. But surely such a pace of cropping cannot be
maintained indefinitely.
The first crops raised in Sydenham were bountiful and
there was plenty for man and beast in all her borders. There
was only one period when there was a scarcity of provisions
in the new settlement. This was in July, 1844, when, owing
to the non arrival of a schooner at Owen Sound, a pinch was
felt for about three or four weeks. Several Lake Shore Line
people returned to Gait whence they had come and worked
at the harvest until it was over. Flour was so scarce that
more fortunate neighbors had to divide up with their
fellows. It was made into a mixture called pap, a word which
later gained an unenviable notority when used in the sense
of political patronage. Pap was made by stimng flour with
water in a cup ; this in turn was poured into scalding milk
and when thickened to the proper consistency and cooled,
was eaten with milk. What was used at one meal was al-
ways prepared about one meal-time before. In time the
overdue schooner arrived with provisions, the use of pap
was discontinued and borrowed flour was returned. It had
been so scarce people had not dared to make bread.
—39—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The first crops were harvested with the sickle, as in the
days of Ruth and Boaz. They were so small in acreage and
stumps in the new clearings were so thick that in all proba-
bility it was the most economical way of cutting the grain.
In a few years the grain cradle came into use. It was fol-
lowed by the reaper and along about 1884 or 1885 the first
self binder was started in Sydenham. People gathered from
all over the township to see that binder start, ourselves
among them. What if an aeroplane had sailed overhead
that day ! The ensuing scene can hardly be imagined.
The grain was drawn to the rude log barns and thresh-
ed, mostly in the winter. Before the advent of the first
threshing machine the common method was to lay the
sheaves in two rows along the floor of the barn and drive a
team of horses or oxen over them and thus tramp out the
grain. During this process the sheaves were tui-ned over
repeatedly so as to thoroughly separate the wheat from the
chaff. In 1848 a threshing machine came into the Owen
Sound district. It was a small affair about six feet long and
five feet wide, little bigger than the ordinary fanning mill.
It was as simple as it was small, the principal parts being a
cylinder antd feeding board. The straw was taken
away from the cylinder by a man using a rake for the pur-
pose, and by him passed to another who threw it out of the
barn or into a mow. Two hundred sheaves were threshed
at a time. Then the machine was stopped so that the grain
accumulating behind the machine might be pulled back.
Two hundred bushels were considered good threshing for
ten hours. There were usually two men and as many teams
with the machine and the price paid the whole outfit for its
use was four dollars a day. From such a type the present
large threshers of the Western Provinces that have threshed
as high as three thousand bushel a day have evolved.
However, only oats, peas and barley could be threshed in
—40—
BUILDING AND CLEARING
the manner first described. Wheat was always threshed
with the flail.
All the farm implements were primitive in the extreme.
As far as possible they were made on the farm itself. Har-
rows were made from crotches cut from a hardwood tree.
These were trimmed down to the required size, the top side
flattened off and long* spikes driven through the A shapeid
frame to act as teeth. The first seeding after clearing was as
often as not harrowed in by cedar brush drawn over the
seeded soil by hand. Nature did the rest. Oxen were the
only beasts of draught and burden at first. Horses were un-
known on some farms on Concession A as late as 1875.
There is an item in the recollections referred to at the begin-
ning of this chapter of a horse bought from Mr. Robert
Crichton, who lived on the 10th Line. The purchaser, who
bought it about 1848, agreed to cut and clear ten acres of
land, two acres to be done in the first ten months after the
sale was made, four acres the next year and the remaining
four the following year as payment, the seller to furnish
board for the choppers while they were on the job. The
price paid for the horse in labor performed was afterwards
estimated at fifty two dollars. This gives one some idea of
the scarcity of horses and the high estimation in which they
were held.
The contract for the first flour mill in the vicinity, built
lat Leith, w-as let in 1846 ; before this the settlers had taken
'their wheat to be ground at Inglis' Mill near Owen Sound,
built some years earlier. When built, this mill was the only
I one of its kind north of Fergus. Its patronage was good;
the settlers from within a radius of foity and fifty miles
came to it to have their grists ground. Sometimes they
waited four and five days before this could be done; their
oxen meanwhile being tied to trees in the bush about the
mill. This mill had one pair of stones and a large bolt, but
there was no screening, or fanning mill, and there was con-
—41—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
siderable pollution of the flour from various causes, especial-
ly hens. The miller's toll was six pounds in the bushel. In
the winter it was customary for the Lake Shore Line set-
tlers to take their grists there one week, return home and
go back for the flour the next. The bottoms of two bags
were sewed together and a bushel of wheat was put in each
bag. The load was then slung across the back of an ox and
taken to the mill. A great deal of thieving went on among
those who gathered and waited for their grists. Axes, ropes
and other articles disappeared mysteriously; it maybe the
mill's patrons considered the miller's toll excessive and
squared the account in this manner. The Leith mill, the
machinery for which, while there is no positive recor^d to
that effect, there are strong grounds for believing was
shipped from England, was a great convenience to the
settlers of the district and was a success from the first.
By 1852 practically every farm on the Lake Shore had
been cleared to some extent. John Telfer had used a nice
discrimination in allotting the lands to the three races (if
that be the proper word) represented in the pioneers. The
Lowland Scottish were given the land along the Lake Shore
Line nearest town, and for about five miles below Annan.
The Scottish Highlanders were settled farther down the line
and around the future village of Balaklava, which was given
that name during the Crimean War. The Irish were sent to
the Irish Block where they secured some splendild farms.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
When our memories turn backward and pass in silent
review the events of the last eighty-five years we find it at
times almost impossible to conceive of the changes that have
in that time occurred in Grey County. It seems hard to
credit the fact that in the year Queen Victoria ascended the
throne, not a tree, so far as is known, had been felled in
Sydenham township. Eighty-five years, while a long life
is not an extraordinarily long one. Yet such a life would
cover in its span all the changes we have seen and heard of
and known in the history of Sydenham.
Of course our expansion, owing to our geographical
position, has not been remarkable. Chicago, which was then
to all intents a frontier town of about thirty-five hundred
souls, was in 1837 incorporated as a city. It is now mount-
ing steadily to the three million mark. Sydney and Buenos
Ayres, the largest modern cities under the Southern Cross,
have become so in the last fifty years. But we do not live
in Chicago and are only mildly interested in Sydney and
Buenos Ayres. It is the changes in our immediate surround-
ings and with which we daily come in contact, that grip our
attention. Distance does not lend enchantment to the view,
in this respect at least.
It was in 1840 that John Telfer, an extraordinary and
even remarkable man, was authorized by W. B. Sullivan, of
the Crown Lands Department in Montreal, to proceed to the
head of Owen Sound (which is properly speaking not a
sound and should never have been named so) via the line of
the Garafraxa road and there assume the duties of Crown
Lands Agent, for the district about to be throwTi ©pen for
—43—
4
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
settlement. The letter in which Mr. Telfer is apprised of his
appointment and given instructions as to his duties is a for-
midable looking document, bears the seals of the Depart-
ment and is bound in colored ribbon. The margins are al-
most as large as the space given to writing, almost every
sentence is paragraphed by itself and the lines are fully one
half inch apart. The time is coming when it will be regarki-
ed as an important historical paper in the annals of Grey
County, if it is not so already. As it outlines clearly the
plan upon which the whole country contiguous to Owen
Sound was settled and the duties imposed upon homestead-
ers, beside throwing many interesting side-lights upon the
coming of the first white settler, and as the Garafraxa
was the road by which practically all the first pioneers came
to North Sydenham, it has been deemed appropriate to
append it in full. The communication follows :
Crown Lands Office, Montreal
Sept. 25th, 1840
To Mr. John Telfer
Sir :
I have the honor to inform you, that His Excellency
the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to 'direct the
opening of a main road from the Township of Garafraxa
to the head of Owen Sound, upon Lake Huron.
It is proposed by the Goverment to place an agent at
the Settlement at the northern end of the road and one at
the southern end near the Township of Garafraxa.
You have been selected for the superintendence of the
northern settlement, and as I have signified this to you per-
sonally and have received your verbal acceptance of the
office, it becomes my duty to detail to you the views of the
Government and the 'duties you will be expected to perform.
In the first place I have to refer you to an extract of a
—44—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
report made by Mr. H. I. Jones in an inspection of the Port-
age road from Coldwater to Machadach Bay, an'd I would
observe that as the northern end of the main road about to
be opened can at present be approached by settlers only
from the water, it is of consequence that the portage road
should be placed in a state of repair as far as the season of
the 3^ear and the limited means at my disposal will permit.
You will therefore peruse the report of Mr. Jones and con-
tract with some person or persons near the road to do such
part of the work as can be accomplished this year, report-
ing to me immediately the particulars of the contract for
my approval and sanction.
The contract price will be paid by me upon your re-
quisition and certificate that you have inspected the work
and that it has been performed according to the contract
and I would have you keep within tlie expenditure recom-
mended by Mr .Jones.
When you have placed the work on the portage roa'd in
progress you will proceed forthwith to the head of Owen
Sound, when you will meet with Deputy Provincial Surveyor
Rankin, at present employed in surveying land along the line
of road and who is authorized to make out the plan of a
town-plot at the head of the Bay. You will select a place for
a building for a place in which you will reside and immedi-
ately cause the same to be erecte^d. It should be large en-
ough for your residence, for stores of supplies and a tem-
porary shelter to settlers and workmen until they shall have
erected shanties for themselves which you will of course see
done as soon as possible.
It has been suggested to me that the most comfortable
and convenient shape for the log building you are required
to erect will be two apartments of twenty feet square and
placed within about ten feet of one another. The space
between being covered and the doors opening into the pas-
sage thus formed, which passage will answer as a place of
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
storage for many articles not liable to be made away with.
If the building should be found too small it will be easy
to a'dd to it by the erection of more apartments upon the
same plan, having a continuation of the passage between
them.
I have further to inform you that it is the intention of
the Government to open the road along the line surveyed
by D'y Provincial Surveyor Rankin, whom you will find on
the ground and who will give you any information as to the
direction of the road.
The kind of road to be laid out may be described as
follows :
That is to say it will be 66 feet in width.
The trees in the centre to the width of 22 feet to be
chopped level with the ground.
At the sides, 22 feet in width each, the trees to be cut
at the ordinary height.
The trees not to be felled out of the road, or if so felled,
to be drawn in.
The trees cut down to be logged and burned in the sides
of the road.
The price to be paid for opening the road, under ordin-
ary circumstances, when on the one hand there is no natural
prairie or lightly timbered land and on the other when no
causewaying or bridging or levelling is required will be at
the rate of thirty-two pounds ten shillings per mile.
The parts of the road which form exceptions to this
rule you will make special contracts for, reporting the same
to me.
Money will be paid to contractoi-s at this office upon
your transmission of the contracts with your certificate
that the work has been inspected by you and found to be
duly performed according to contract.
During the winter you will get out timber for a saw-
mill and gristmill to be erected in such a position near the
—46—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
head of the Sounid as may be selected for the pui-pose by
Mr. Rankin. As it is not improbable but that some private
individual may choose to erect mills at his own expense and
as I am desirous to economize the funds placed in my hands
to the extent of my power I am desirous to postpone this
wish until as late a period as will be consistent with proceed-
ing with the erection of the mills in the spring.
I am further to infoiTn you that it is the intention of
'the Government to locate upon free grants of land to the ex-
tent of fifty acres each such heads of families or single men,
who have heretofore received no grants of land from the
Government as may be willing to accept the same upon the
strict terms proposed and who may appear capable of under-
taking the settlement antd of carrying it through success-
fully.
Man}" of the settlers will probably apply at this office
for authority to be located. To those whom I shall approve
of I shall give authority addressed to you and you will place
them upon land as you shall be directed.
When any of them shall apply to you, you will enter
the application in the form annexed to these instructions,
showing the age of the applicant, his place of birth, his
length of residence, the number of his family and his
pecuniary means if he has any. You will keep an entry in
a book of such applications and transmit to me slips copied
from the book, upon which you will receive authority for
making the location.
You will particularly explain to the locators that they
are not to expect assistance from the Government and
recommend them not to locate unless they can from their
own resources maintain themselves and their families until
crops can be raised from the land.
Upon the approval of the survey to be made by Mr.
Rankin I shall furnish you with maps an'd the lots reserved
will be open for sale or location, you keeping in view that
—47—
REMINISCExNTES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
' closeness of settlement is the object of the Government and
\ that detached locations cannot be allowed.
As regards sales of land I shall in due season furnish
.\ou with separate instructions.
In contracting for the opening of the road you will pre-
fer such persons as shall engage to take land in the whole
or in part for the work to be performed, on condition of
actual settlement.
You will furnish yourself with a supply of provisions,
sulflcient for the winter. That is to say, one hundred
baiTels of flour and fifty barrels of pork, also with axes,
spades and other necessary implements. These you will dis-
tribute in payment for work upon the roalds, or for money
at such rates as will cover the cost, transport and wastage.
You will make out a regulai* monthly report of your pro-
ceedings and transmit the sums to me as opportunity shall
offer, and when you are in doubt as to your proceedings
you will apply to me for directions.
You will explain to all applicants for locations that if
it shall be discovered that any person has before received a
grant of land from the Crown his location shall be consid-
ered void and that this point will be strictly investigated
upon return of the locations.
The conditions upon which the applicants shall be lo-
I cated will be as follows : 1st ; The locater is to reside upon
his location ; 2nd, If he wishes to be absent for any time he
is to apply to you stating his desire, the occasion and the
intended length of his absence and you will give him leave
if the occasion be legitimate and proper ; 3rd, If any locater
shall abandon his lot without leave or shall fail to return to
it in due season the lot is to be considered vacant ; 4th, No
patent will be issued for any located lot until one third of
the land shall be cleared anid under crop ; 5th, The time
given for this clearing will be four years from the date of
—48—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
the location after which time if the clearing be not made
the location will be considered forfeited.
You will furnish strict accounts in duplicate with dup-
licate vouchers for your expenditure, in money or otherwise,
and you will furnish your requisitions, contracts and other
documents in duplicate.
Your remuneration will be at the rate of ten shillings
per diem while employed and j'ou will be allowed from the
provisions in your custody two pounds of flour and two
pounds of pork per diem.
In consequence of the road vaiying from a right line
and of the base line being straight some of the first lots
will slightly vary in quantity but locaters must understand
that the lot granted is in satisfaction of a location more or
less, and if you find lots greatly to exceed or be under the
quantity of fifty acres you will resei've them for sale.
As the road is completed you will cause grass seed to
be sown upon it and make a charge for the expenditure.
I have the honor to be, Sir
Your most ob't Sei'vant
W. B. SULLIVAN.
The first thing that will strike the reader's mind will
in all probability be that for a man who was paid the modest
sum of ten shillings a day Mr. Telfer was given wide discre-
tionary powers in his new office. He is ordered to report
regularly to headquarters in certain matters. But in all
minor questions, and some of them not so minor, his word
was law among the homesteaders. He was never backward
in enforcing his authority among them and the five or six
years following his arrival at Owen Sound were about the
most strenuous in his adventurous life. Vexatious discus-
sion was constantly arising among settlers who thought they
had not been given a square deal. Mr. Telfer was one of the
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
most roundly abused men in Canada, but he was not a sens-
itive man and rather enjoyed a fight. His battles with the
world had taug-ht him a system of attack all his own and
almost always he gave a little better than he got. With
his activities at Owen Sound we are not concerned however.
Six years after his arrival there, or in 1846, he moved down
to Leith and with his coming commences the history of the
village. It took its name, of course, from the seaport of
Auld Reekie, from the vicinity of which many of the new
settlers were coming, if not from Edinburgh itself. The
name of the village and Mr. Telfer's intention of coming to
it eventually seem to have been in the mind of that gentle-
man from the time of his first arrival at Owen Sound. Had
he had his way Owen Sound would have been given the
name of Edinburgh, but local pride and the customs of a
new land were too strong for him and his wishes were ig-
nored. Had the Athens of the North found its original
site at the very head of the Frith of Forth, the analogy in
the sense of relative geographical position between the two
Scottish cities and their would-be prototypes in Canada
would have been striking and complete.
When Mr. Telfer moved in, the site of the village-to-be
was still in its natural state. What induced him to come in
is not clearly apparent. There was no natural harbor and it
was not until thirteen or fourteen years later the first dock
was built. But it is surprising, when looking through the
newspapers an'd legal documents of the time, to notice the
importance the early settlers attached to water power.
There was little use of growing wheat unless they had mills
to grind flour out of it. A harbor could not have been made
at Leith without vast expenditures for dredging, docking
and a breakwater, and the steady lowering of the lake levels
since the early sixties wouM have made such expenditures
endless. The first engines made in Gait were built in 1844
by the Crombie firm and these would have been available ;
—50—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
seeing so much free fuel was to be had everywhere one
sometimes wonders why they were not utilized but
the pioneers never bought them when a stream
could be dammed and the water power used instead. The
stream at Leith was at that time a large one. It entered
the bay at a point just south of where the dock was after-
wards built and was known as the Water o' Leith. There
was a good water privilege back from the bay a short dis-
tance and here Mr. Telfer immediately erected a grist and
flour mill. It was at first only about half its subsequent
size, had two run of stones and was substantially built as
one may see upon examination, for it is still standing. The
dam, however, gave a great deal of trouble at first. It per-
sisted in leaking, but this was in time overcome. A Mr.
Fairbaim was given the contract of building it and many
of the first settlers in the village found their first employ-
ment there in its construction. No record of the price
survives but it must have been insignificant when compared
with buiMing costs to-day. It was a time when men did
business on very little capital, — on a shoestring, as we say
nowadays. Wages were low where they paid at all ; a man's
stout arms and an ability and willingness to use them were
his best assets.
What was known as the Mill House was shortly after-
wards built, about twenty-five yards north of the mill. It
is now the same as though it had never been, having been
razed about fifty years ago. Here, about 1850, the first
store keeper kept his stock in trade, — a gentleman named
Wylie.
The town plot of Leith was surveyed in 1851 by William
Smith, Deputy Provincial Surveyor. The old men were see-
ing visions and the young men dreaming dreams of a future
metropolis and the streets were given euphonius and his-
toric names by Mr. Telfer. Those running northeast and
southwest, commencing at the waterfront, were nameki res-
—51—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
pectively : Huron, Buchanan, Princes, Queen, John, and
Brant. The Leith Walk ran southeast from the waterfront,
starting from the future dock and merging into the road
to Annan. The remaining streets running in the same
direction and on the northeast side of the Walk were named ;
Market, Wallace, Thistle, Bruce and Moore. Princes Street
was named for the classic throughfare in Scotland's metro-
polis, Wallace and Bruce streets for her national patriots,
Thistle street for her national emblem, Moore street for
the Irish poet. Brant for the great Indian chief of that
name, and so on. A large space on the northwest side of
Princes street and between Wallace and Thistle was reserv-
ed for a market place but never functioned as such. Forty
years ago it was a huge gravel pit and is now covered with
the quick-growing cedar.
In 1853 Mr. Wylie erected a store at the corner of
Princes street and Leith Walk, with a storehouse at the rear
but separated from it by a short distance. The mtei'vening
space was filled by a residence erected for him there in the
early spring of 1854 by Messrs James and Allan Ross, both
of whom had worked on the construction of the Owen Sound
jail the previous year. These two also helped in the erec-
tion of the Leith distillery, referred to later. Late in 1854
they also built a large two storey frame residence and store
directly opposite Mr. Wylie's buildings for Peter Marshall.
This latter site is now covered by the residence of Oliver
Cameron. The Ross brothers also built frame houses for
Robert Grierson, Henry Taylor and John Tumbull. The
last named house went up in smoke one day a few years
ago ; the Grierson residence was bricked over and is now
occupied by Mr. Couper and Henry Taylor's house was sold
soon after its erection to Peter Burr arid is still occupied by
his son, W. N. Burr.
In May, 1855 James Ross, Sr., and his sons James and
Allan formed a partnership under the firm name of James
—52—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
Ross and Sons, and rented the Marshall store for two and
one-half years. They carried on a general store business
there until late in 1857, when they bought out Mi'. Wylie
and moved across the street. Here they continued in bus-
iness until 1875 and their trade must have been a consider-
able one. In one year in the early seventies they sold over
one thousand dollars' worth of tobacco and if they sold
other goods in proportion, it is evident their turnover was
considerable.
Both these store buildings were later destroyed by fire.
The Marshall building made a merry blaze one night in the
late summer of 1880, while it was standing empty. Some
people were uncharitable enough to think it did not take
fire accidentally. It was a large high building, big enough for
a small boy to get lost in, as one of them who still survives
can testify. The Wylie store and residence was burned one
day in April, 1888, while occupied by David Ross, and with
it were burned many records that would have been useful
in such a work as the present one. Fortunately some of
them were saved. Its site is now occupied by the place of
v/orship of the Baptist congregation in Leith.
i The first "institution" known as a tavern was erected
about one hundred and fifty yards northeast of the mill, on
the Leith Walk, on the left hand side of the road while go-
ing to Annan. The exact date has been lost in the mists of
time. It was a large building for the time and was built
so well and withstood the ravages of the years so success-
fully it is still standing. One of its early features was a
large bar in the front facing the Leith Walk, with a storage
room for beer. This bar sometimes presented scenes of the
most animated activity, scenes that would have pained the
heart of the prohibitionist, with men busy on both sides of it.
The present occupant of this building is Mr. Charles Kemp,
wiio came to the village in 1891 and assumed charge of the
mill. He ground the last grist there in the late summer of
—53—
PwEMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
1921 and the machinery that had rumbled for seventy-five
years was at last silent. The building was dismantled, the
machinery taken out and sold and the oM mill still stands
as a relic to remind us of its former glory and the very
earliest days of the village, when the hearts of the pioneers
beat high with the hope it would yet be a city. Mr. Kemp's
regime had extended a little over thirty years and a more
faithful or trustworthy miller never served a community in
such a capacity.
Just east of this, the first hotel in the village, and
distant about thirty yards from it stood another large one
storey log tavern, first built for and occupied by William
Glen. It was a rambling affair but very commcdious. Mr.
Glen was among the earliest settlers and while in middle
life succeeded to a large estate in Dumfries-shire and the
title of Glen-Airston. His heirs still own this site and a
large lot adjoining, and from the manner real estate values
have, since the outbreak of the Great War, been jumping
in Leith it may yet be well worth owning. The hotel was
torn down about forty years ago to provide fuel for a brick
kiln. So was its large stable, also of homely log construction,
which stood directly opposite it on Princes street, and for
the same purpose. A few yards directly southwest on the
same street stands a small log building, occupied until thirty-
four years ago by the Misses Easton. It then stood empty
for twenty-five years, when it was sold for seventy-five
dollars and renovated into a summer cottage called Blarney
Castle. It as built in 1857 from cedar logs cut on the lot
on which it stands. Today it would probably bring twelve
times seventy-five dollars. The destiny of this building and
of the log one alongside it remind one of their counterpart
in Scripture where two men reapdd in the same field. The
one was taken and the other left. Want of fuel sacrificed
one and high building costs saved the other.
Immediately adjoining the Water o' Leith on the op-
—54—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
posite side from the Leith Walk and fronting on the Bay
Shore Road is a large tract of land which was not included
in the original town plot. The soil is almost pure sand and
some large pines once grew here. Until about thirty-five
years ago it was the scene of all the athletic sports of the
village and w^as used frequently for a picnic ground. A
prettier spot for such events couM hardly be found but
latterly it has been turned into a golf course. Time out of
mind it has been known as the Old Distillery Field ; it is
probably about fifteen acres in extent. Here, in the seven-
ties and eighties, were played all the cricket matches, when
the game flourished in Leith. The annual excursions of
Owen Sound's combined Sunday Schools were also accommo-
dated within its bounds in monster picnics that were the
big events of the year. The last one of these came in 1885.
I In the south corner of this field, a distillery was built
j in the early days," which will sound like a vaguely inkief-
inite period. But the evidence as to the exact date of its
erection has been so contradictory and confusing that no
positive opinion on that point is ventured. As fai* as can
be ascertained however, it was between 1854 and 1858.
After our experience in trying to find out the exact time
we are not surprised that two creditable witnesses will go
into the witness box and each swear solemnly and con-
scientiously to facts, as he believes them, that flatly contra-
dict one another. With the strange perversity of human
nature we pass up recent events as not woi*th remembering
until they have conced€*d into the dim and misty past and
then, when they are all but forgotten, we raise heaven and
earth to find out what really happened at such and such a
time. Nor does it appear who it was built for. William
Wye Smith, an early historian of the county, says it was
built for James Wilson of Gait, but this has been disproved.
Nobody was keeping track of current events at the time,
probably because they never imagined for a moment these
—55—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
local events would ever be of historical interest. They were
all engrossed in the all-absorbing- task of making a living
and getting ahead in the world, as we are today. We are
not so very much ^different, in many respects, from the
people of seventy years ago after all.
Sometimes great movements and great events have
their origin in trifling incidents which everyone overlooks at
the time these incidents happen. It is perhaps as well we
are not eteraallj^ oppressed with a sense of responsibility
for our slightest action.
Benjamin Franklin, while he was yet a printer and at
some time before the American Revolution kept a small
ledger of his personal expenses, which in some way became
lost. He made diligent search for it himself and failed to
find it. It was known after he died this book was lost, and
search was made for it by relic hunters at different periods
until last year, when by the merest chance it was discovered
in a garret in Boston. It immediately sold for twelve
thousand dollars.
Tlie two leading papers in Auckland, N. Z., now a city
of one hundred and seventy thousand, in 1923 celebrated
their sixtieth anniversaries, one within six weeks of the
other. They published splendid anniversary numbers, both
of which it was our good fortune to have mailed us. These
are mainly historical retrospects of the city and environs,
from its founding until the present day. When it came to a
narration of events in the forties and fifties of last century,
of buildings that were built only to be destroyed by various
means and business men who flourished at that time, in
short, events of purely local interest, these two gTcat papers
had to depend almost entirely upon the memory of an aged
lady, a Mrs. Hope, who still sui'vives there.
These two incidents are cited as a comment upon the
mutability of human affairs and the difficulties encountered
—56—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
by the relic hunter and the historian when they start delv-
ing into the past to unearth its secrets or treasures.
The main fact about this distillery then, was that it
was built, even if the building date has been lost. It was a
large two storey wooden building, on the Water o' Leith
strangely enough, as an engine furnished the motive power,
it vvas of the old vertical frame, butterfly value type, built
by the Crombie firm in Gait. The new equipment was all
first class for the time and the whiskey turned out by the
new industry was also first class, if we may accept the testi-
mony of people who should have been connoisseurs in that
respect. Extensive cattle sheds and hog pens were added
as outbuildings and here the mash, after it had been
thoroughly drained, was used to fatten the stock. Some-
times the head distiller, a man called Sibbald, had fits of
aberration liowever, and it was fed to the steers and hogs
with startling and spectaculai' results. A drunken hog,
according to some of those who witnessed the consequences
of these lapses of memory, is the most comical sight in the
world, almost as comical as the sight of a human hog who
deliberately drinks himself into a state of beastly insensi-
bility is loathsome.
The second distiller was a Mr. Rochester, who was in
charge several years. However, the distillery, which seems
to have been the only one at the time in this part of Grey
County, was short lived. According to W. W. Smith, it was
closed in 1865 and had been for a year or so. It was de-
^molished shortly after that date and no sign of it remains.
The whiskey manufactured there retailed at Leith and Owen
Sound at from forty to sixty cents a gallon. Henry Baker
had an agency in Owen Sound, where the demand for it was
brisk. It was in great demand at bam raisings and other
like events. The fanner who refused to furaish whiskey for
his bara raising was esteemed a tightwad. A pailful was
placed on a piece of squared timber at a raising and every
—57—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
one drank ad libitum. It must have been good liquor for
one recoils at the thought of what woul'd happen were the
same procedure followed today with the vile concoctions
called whiskey.
As illustrating the quality of "pure Leith whiskey" the
following true story was given us quite recently by an old
lady, now in her eightieth 3'ear. When about fifteen years
of age she was sent down from Annan, with a companion
about the same age, by a farmer who was raising a bam,
for a pail of stimulant for the occasion. The road from
Leith to Annan was at that time only a path through the
woods ; the day was rather warm and the shade pleasant.
They reached the distillery, filled the pail and started home-
wai"id. When about half way to Annan they bethought
themselves of trying the liquor to see what it tasted like.
They found the taste sharp, but not unpleasing and each
took a little drink. This was followed a few minutes later by
one a little larger. No more was partaken of but the young
ladies experienced a delightful exhilaration, followed by a
dreamy languor. A little later one of them suggested that
they take a rest in the shade. They lay down and in a
minute both were fast asleep. When they awakened they
felt no bad effects of their nap and it was not until years
later that the truth (dawned upon them, they had been hope-
lessly drunk. Mrs. C told this story with a hearty
gusto as a joke on herself.
In 1858, Allan Ross built a mill for his father, James
Ross, Sr., on what was known on the first maps as Reefer's
Creek, half a mile northeast of Leith. This mill was built
for a woolen mill but never operated as such. The machin-
ery was bought from a mill on the same stream, about three
quarters of a mile east of Annan and built for John Wilson.
After installing this machinery, the owners changed their
minds, bought five thousand logs in Sarawak and made
—58—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
plans to operate a saw mill. This idea was in turn abandon-
ed and at last oatmeal machinery was set in place and the
mill commenced grinding. Allan Ross, having built the mill,
was made head miller by his father arid ground oatmeal
successfully for eleven years. The frequent change in plans
was due to faulty engineering in the dam. A huge overshot
wheel was first put in position, but it was found to be so
big there was almost no head of water on it. This was
taken out and a pit dug at the foot of the flume, a turbine
wheel was placed there and everything worked satisfac-
torily. Oatmeal was shipped to all parts of Ontario, to New
York, and some consignments were even sent to Edinburgh.
This latter, however, seems like carrying coals to New-
Castle. The stream commenced drying up in the summer
months and in the early seventies the mill was shut down
for good. The machinery was removed thirty-five ago and
m 1902 the mill was torn down. Its site is now occupied
by a honey extracting plant owned by I\Ir. Frank Showell.
There was no dock at Leith until shortly before 1860,
but soon after Mr. Telfer came some piles were driven close
to shore near the mouth of the Water o'Leith. A landing
place was made on this and a large batteau built, which was
rowed out to the small steamships that occasionally called
and took off the passengers. The MacNeil family, coming
in 1855 from the eastern end of Ontario, were landed in this
manner. They came on the steamer Kaloolah. We were
told by one of the sons in tliis family, tliat the first money
he ever earned was in unloading lumber at Leith for James
Ross, Sr. The schooner on which this lumber was loaded
approached as near the shore as her draught would permit,
there being no dock to tie up to, and the lumber was thrown
overboard to float ashore. All trace of the piling which
marked the site of the first landing place has completely
disappeared, although diligent search lias been made for it
in recent years.
—59—
6
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
One most unusual fact about the village may be noticed
here. From the days when the first pioneers set foot in it
until the present moment, there has not been a solitary
case of drowning, either there or in the immediate vicinity.
There have been narrow escapes but the victims aKvays
managed to elu'de the jaws of the trap. Considering that it
was bounded on one side by the bay and on the other by
what was once a deep stream and mill dam, in both of which
the oportunities were never wanting, the record seems re-
markable indeed.
I By an oversight we have omitted mentioning in its
j proper place the building of a large tannery on Reefer's
1 Creek, by James Ross, Sr., a few yards west of the oatmeal
mill previously spoken of. He had designs of making a
tanner of his son John, but that young man had plans of
Ills own and, in 1867, he joined a large party of Canadian
emigrants who set out from Gait, with New Zealand as their
objective. His brother Andrew was also of this party, most
of whom pioneered in the Waikaito district. North Island,
and became prosperous farmers there. The new tannery
was never operated and now not a trace of it remains.
Some years after the opening of the Ross store, on
Princes Street, and the building of the first dock, this fiim
built a large storehouse for grain just northeast of their
place of business, on the site now covered by the large driv-
ing shed owned by the Baptist congregation. A great deal
of grain was handk^d here, the queue of wagons waiting to
unload often extending far down the street, but about
fifteen years after its erection the building was jacked up
and moved down to the wateifront to a new site just east
of the dock. Standing beside it, but nearer the dock was
another smaller storehouse owned by Adam Ainslie. Both
buildings had the hewed barn frame which was the vogue
when they were built; The first was torn idown about thirty
years ago and the second in 1915. Across the road from
_60—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
these on the Leith Walk was a large hay shed which has
long disappeared also.
I From the above it will be inferred that the grain trade
I at Leith must have reached considerable proportions.
' There was no port of call on the east shore nearer than
Meaford, so the little village had a large territory to draw
from in the shipment of grain. As many as three schooners
lay at the dock at one time waiting for their grain cargoes.
Much of this was taken in part or whole payment of
farmers' store bills at the Leith and Annan stores of the
Ross firm. No figures are available of the yearly shipments.
Prices were low and currency scarce and this grain trade
was virtually carrie<d on by barter.
The first hotel keeper in the village was James Burr,
who was mine host in the public house built on the Leith
Walk, referred to above. Mr. Burr came up from Elora
shortly after Mr. Telfer came to his new possession, but
soon changed his occupation to farming and settled on the
farm on Concession A. later owned by Donald Cameron. The
first white child born in Leith was of the feminine gender ;
she still lives in Owen Sound, but infoiTnation on this point
is so vague that nothing further in regard to it is ventured
and the reader may take what has been given for what it
is worth. Peter Burr came in 1855, and for a few months
that year shared his house with the Reverend Robert
Dewar. He erected a blacksmith shop beside his house an'd
this building still stands. He was a first class blacksmith
and soon gathered a flourishing trade.
The cooper's trade must have been a flourishing one
also about this time and later, for in the early years of the
village there were no less than three of them there. The
first one, and one of the very first settlers in the village,
was Robert Vail. The Vails can rightfully claim to be the
oldest family in what are now St. Vincent and Sydenham
townships. The head of the family came from Toronto, and
—61—
re:miniscences of north Sydenham
was said to be a well educated man amd engaged in the
newspaper business on the small scale then prevailing. He
settled, or rather camped, at the point that yet bears his
name and must have led what was truly a life in the wilder-
ness, as there is evidence that he was in that neighborhood
in 1825, or fifteen years before Owen Sound saw its first
settler. He claimed that he had trapped up what
was afterwards the Sydenham River as well as the
Water o' Leith in the winter of 1825-26. This story has,
of course, never been verified but that he followet-i trap lines
through these then unbroken wilds nearly one hundred
years ago seems to be an established fact. He seems to have
been the type of man for whom the wilderness and its
dangers had a sort of stern fascination and probably he en-
joyed life as much or more than some of us who pride our-
selves upon our ultra-refined civilization.
Another cooper was a Mr. S who was a good
mechanic and would have prospered, had not domestic infel-
icity broken up his home. He built a roughcast house in
the village and some time afterwards became hopelessly
deranged. The house is still standing, but has long been
deserted. Still another cooper was John Mitchell, whose
business was much the largest of the three. These coopers
catered to local custom only and made fish kegs, butter tubs,
barrels, in short anything with staves in it that the
farmers wanted. They were all-round mechanics and made
the finished article from the trees felled, sawed into stave
lengths and split by themselves. The factory operative of
today would be as helpless as a baby were he confronted
with such a job. "Min was min in thim days" as the Irish-
man said.
All the houses built at that time had hand split lath
and shingles. A man would go out into a promising tract
of cedar in a swamp, run up a little shanty and start shingle
making on his own. There was no question as to his getting
—62—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
all the patronag'e in the home market, because it was impos-
sible to buy anywhere else. Our shippers complain loudly
today of excessive freight rates. How \\ould they like it
if the railroads were suddenly wiped out of existence ? Our
freig-ht rates are, on the average, considerably lower than
in the United States, but the cost of living is higher than
there in other words the purchasing power of the dollar
is lower. But if the railroads were destroyed to-morrow we
would be in no worse plight than Canadians of 1850 were,
when there were only sixty-six miles of track in the whole
of Cana>da. And after the first shock of inconvenience had
passed we would begin to learn the lesson that people can
get along with little above the barest necessities when they
are compelled to. Scripture to the contrary notwithstand-
ing, we shall persist in the belief that a man's happiness
consists in the abundance of goods he possesseth. Somehow
we all have the secret belief that is is a mark of inferiority
and degradation if we cannot "keep up with the Joneses."
It's no in titles nor in rank ;
It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest ;
It's no in making muckle mair ;
It's no in books, it's no in leai-,
To mak us truly blest ;
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest :
Nae treasurers nor pleasures
Could make us happy lang ;
The heart aye's the part aye
That makes us right or wrang.
This same spirit of keeping up with the Joneses has
—63—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
possibly caused more heart burning-, jealousy and misery
of mind than all other human passions combined. It per-
vades all classes of society from the highest to the lowest
and the few that are exempt from it are of all men to be
most envied. Perhaps it is part of the price we pay for
what we call modern progress. For all the comforts, con-
veniences, inventions and discoveries that have made pre-
sent-day life so seemingly easy we may be sure that Nature,
if not one way then in another, exacts her price. We have
it on a very high authority, the Declaration of Independence
of the American Colonies no less, that the pursuit of hap-
piness is among- the inalienable rights of man. The pursuit,
mark you not the gaining of it, for it is to be doubted if
any man w^as ever truly and entirely happy, at least for any
length of time. It was never intended, in the divine sclieme
of things, that one generation of men should be happier
than another and they never are. These people who flour-
ished in Sydenham sixty and seventy years ago, for one
thing, knew nothing- of what we call the spirit of unrest
then. There is a good deal of truth in the homels' old saying
that wiiat we do not know will never hurt us. If they
lacked the one thousand conveniences and comforts that
modern progress has bestowed upon us, they also lacked
many ills of flesh and of the mind these same tilings have
brought in their train. One hundred yeai*s from now the
people will wonder how we ever managed to exist on the
earth, just as we wonder how the people of eighty years
ago ever got along. They managed to get along all right
and to extract as much happiness from life as was possible
under the circumstances. Are we doing any more ? And
in some respects their civilization was more advanced than
ours. When their armies went to war they fought with
some show at least of chivalry. They did not kill their
enemies wholesale by means of poison gas, or starve whole
populations by means of an infamous blockade. They did not
—64—
I
THE FIRST SETTLE:\IENT
gather in the great cities by tens of thousands and pay five
hundred thousand dollars to two lov»' browed human brutes
for pounding one another into insensibility, or at least
attempting to. Maybe you will say they did not do these
things because they did not know how. Well, we have
learned how and are we any the happier for it ? "He that
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Tlie question as
to whether the pioneers in their day were happier than we
are now has always seemed to us a useless and meaningless
one. If the debit and credit sides were struck and an aver-
age taken it would be found they were as happy as we are,
but no more so. The secret of happiness lies in every- man's
own heart if he only knows how to hunt for and find it.
One of the early shingle makers was a character known
as Doctor Scott. He came into the settlement with the
first pioneers and it was at once recognized that his early
training and education had been of the highest order. No-
body knew if he had ever held a doctor's degree ; he certain-
ly never practiseid medicine in the neighborhood. He was a
"down and outer" and owed his descent to liquor. When
sober he had the easy, genial courtesy and well bred dignity
of a gentleman to the manor born. When drunk he was a
raging fiend who would even descend to wife beating, and
as he was a large powerful man nobody cared to cross him
while in his cups. When he first came to the locality he
made shingles 'down near Squaw Point and back from the
bay a short distance. The shingles he carried down to the
landing at Butchart's sawmill, on his back. As he was
chronically destitute, Thomas Rutherford gave him space
at the back of his farm on which to build a shack, and by
many other acts of kindness strove to wean him from his
evil ways. It was no use, however. He suffered a par-
alytic stroke as the result of a violent debauch and was
found by Mrs. Rutherford lying across the floor of his shack
all alone, his wife having left him. He die^d a few days later.
—65—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
It was such cases that gave a great impetus to the move-
ment for temperance reform.
The above mentioned sawmill was built by David
Butchart just east of Squaw Point, some time in the eai-ly
fifties, possibly even earlier. An engine supplied the powder.
The logs all came in by water and the lumber left the same
way as there were no land roads to the mill. Mr. Butchart
was a man of considerable enterprise as he also conducted a
cheese factory on his farm. Both buildings have long since
been torn down, although the ruins of the sawmill's foun-
dation ai^e still visible. Mr. Butchart had fourteen of a
family ; they moved to Manitoba in 1879 when the west was
beginning to open up.
Another character in the village's early history was
an Englishman called William S . William was a large
man with a large family and he haid an appetite that gained
for him a sort of gentle notoriety. It could not justly be
described as fairy-like. He seemed to be very susceptible
to changes in temperature and on a cold winter morning
when going out to cut wood was wont to don about four or
five shirts to stave off the momentary discomfort of the
frosty air. As the forenoon progressed and the fires of in-
ternal combustion steadily mounted under the stress of ex-
ercise, these shirts were one by one discarded, until at last
only an undershirt covered his torso and the space immedi-
ately surrounding him looked like a IMonday morning's
washing.
One Easter Sunday, William attended Divine Service,
just after having partaken more generously than wisely of
a homely food which from time immemorial has been popu-
lar at Eastertide. He was observed to be in a somnolent state
even before the opening psalm. Five minutes after the
service started he had the Seven Sleepers backed off the
boards and was a thousand miles deep in a sea of slumber.
Luckily he did not snore. Everyone looked for him to waken
—66—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
at the end of the sermon. Not so, however. A prayer
followed the sermon, the closing psalm was sung, with some
extra volume thrown in for the benefit of the sleeper who
by this time was the cynosure of all eyes, and the bene-
diction Vr'as pronounced. The soporific still had him in its
power and it was only when Walter MacNeil walked over
and shook him violently by the shoulder that reason as-
cended again her sleep-siiattered throne and the dreamer
swam slow^Iy back fnto consciousness.
"It was the eggs," said William, and everybody be-
lieved him. It is curious how such little incidents stick
in the minds of people who witness them, trivial though
they may be, and the amusement they get out of them in
after years.
Turning now to Annan we find that in 1850 the only
building then standing there was the log schoolhouse, to
which extended reference has been made elsewhere. It
stood on the southwest corner of the school lot and has
been described by an old pupil as a large log building which
in winter time seemeid impossible to keep warm for some
reason or another. There are no dates available in connec-
tion with the buildings that were afterwards erected. The
generation of men in the building trades who built them
have passed on and those who remember their building-
could almost be counted on one's ten fingers and thumbs
and their memory is the only guide to be relied upon
in the matter. The secontd building, accepting this as an
authority, that rose in the clearing at "the Comer" was
a large two storey rough cast double house that stood
directly opposite the school on the road leading to Leith
but facing on the Lake Shore Line. It had the hewed
barn frame common to the period and was substantial!}
built. Two gentlemen, Vanwyck and McKinnon, here kept
the first store in Annan, handling everything that could
—67—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
be exchanged in the neighborhood for money or some of
the Hghter kinds of the farmer's produce. In that part of
the house next the road to Leith Mr. Vanwyck first kept
hotel in the village. The next storekeepers in the same
building were Messrs Rixon and Lemon, who did business
for only a few years. As head clerk and general factotum
they had a gentleman named McGillivray, who seems to
have been "the life of the business." William Speedie
was next in succession as a general storekeeper in the
same location ; he afterwards built a store and residence
for himself farther down the street on the Lake Shore
Line and moved into it. Here the Annan post office was
kept for many years ; just how many is uncertain. A
newspaper clipping of May 24th, 1899, states that Mr.
and Mrs. Speedie had dispensed the post there for thirty-
six years, which would fix the date on which they took
charge as 1863 and as the said statement appears in an
address accompanying a presentation to Mrs. Speedie and
is signed by four old citizens of the neighborhood, one
one would suppose it to be reliable. William W. Smith, on
the other hand, says in his gazetteer published in 1865
that Leith was then the post town for the village, which
was known as Leith Corner, and Mr. Smith is generally
reliable too. Such discrepancies will help the reader to
take a tolerant view of such little inaccuracies as appear
in a work like the present one. Mr. Speedie, who was the
second school teacher at Annan, kept a general stock of
merchan'idise and gave excellent service as a postmaster.
On the lot between the post office and the schoolground
James Davidson built a stone cottage, which has in later
years been enlarged and is now occupied by Robert Day.
On the next lot north-east Doctor Allan Sloane, who gradu-
ated from Toronto University in 1865 and immediately
came to Annan to establish a practise, built a brick resi-
dence and dispensary which was in the middle nineties
—68—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
destroyed by fire. He then replaced it with a larger one
which is still stankiing-.
The second place of business at Annan was a (for the
time) large frame two storey building built directly op-
opposite Vanwyck's Hotel and on the Lake Shore Line.
Thomas Vickers here kept a store of the usual type found
in the country villages and ran it in connection witli a
cheese factory, also his own. It was afterwards used for
a great variety of purposes until one Sunday a few years
ago, when it furnished an hour's sensation by making a
merry bonfire. Across the street from it on tlie Leith
road a frame store building was built by the Telford
brothers, James and William, and rented by the Ross
brothers, David and Hugh C, who hatd previously kept store
in the Vanwyck building. They moved into it and here
James Ross and Sons, which firm succeeded the Ross
Brothers, did business until 1888. It has had a long list
of proprietors since and is at present the repository of
His Majesty's mails for the village. Fifty years ago it was
the general trading place for the news and views of half the
township. Everybody knew the proprietors and they knew
everybody. In fact the average country store was at that
time as interesting a place as one would care to visit. A
conversation casually started wouM end up in some strange
and fearsome subjects sometimes, but generally on the
comparative merits of the Honorable George Brown as
exemplified in the Toronto Globe and that wily old leader
of the grand old Consei'vative party, Sir John A MacDonald.
Those were days when a man was either straight Grit or
Tory and noses could be counted at the polling booths as
confidently as a farmer now counts cattle in a barayard.
There v.ere no third parties to confuse calculation or be-
cloud the issues and the man wlio professed complete in-
dependence in political thought and in the marking of iiis
—69—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
ballot was regarded by his neighbors with suspicion, as
not being quite right above the neckband.
( Shortly after the first settlement a mill was built on
Reefer's creek, about three quarters of a mile east of the
, village. The exact date of its erection it has been found
I impossible to determine but it was sometime between 1846
and 1849. The builder and proprietor was John Wilson, an
engineer who came up from Kingston with his family, one
of whom, James, afterwards became its head miller. John
Wilson seems to have been a man of considerable informa-
tion on many subjects besi'de milling. There was a fine
I head of water at Wilson's Falls, the name given the site
of the mills, for there was more than one of them, a saw-
, mill being built after the flour mill, on the opposite side of
the stream from it. Woolen mill machinery was installed
I in the upper storey of the flour mill and for several years
a carding trade was carried on. The sawmill disappeared
long years ago although there are several old barns still
standing on the Lake Shore Line the lumber for which was
sawn there. The flour mill is still standing, though con-
siderably reduced in size. Wilson's Falls was the scene of
two drowning accidents in the earliest days, one of them
of a girl who was dragged into the fall while attempting
to fill a pail of water.
The flow of water in this stream was always a source
of mystery to all who knew it. It was a stream which did
not grow larger as it approached its mouth and the Wilson
mills continued running long years after the oatmeal mill
neai Leith, which has been referred to, had closed its doors
for lack of motive power. It was noticed by the earliest
settlers that shortly after the surrounding country was
cleared up the lower end frequently dried up in the summer
months, when other streams were running full. There
are crevasses along its bank for a considerable distance
below the falls and possibly much of the water escap^
—70—
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
into these to find its way by some underground passage to
the bay. The first pioneers found it a fine trout stream
and up until about forty-five years ago its mouth was the
scene every spring of a large Indian encampment, when the
sucker season was at its height. The trout long ago suc-
cumbed to the ravages of the angler, the Indian encamp-
ments are rapidly becoming only a memory and even the
sucker seems to be deserting it.
We are told that the historian Gibbon took thirteen
years to write his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
There is no positive data on the subject, but possibly H.
G. Wells took thirteen months to write his Outline of
History. The story of the gradual decline in the fortunes
of a country village couM probably be compressed into
thirteen minutes. A brief period of prosperity still awaits
the village of Leith however, and to this an equally brief
chapter will be devoted later on. After that well, as
Lockhart says, "the muffled drum is in prospect."
—71—
CHAPTER V.
NO. THREE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
In the year 1861 the British steamship Trent was
proceeding from Nassau to London, having on board as
passengers two gentlemen, Mr. Sliddel and Mr. Mason,
commissioners from the Confederate Government at Rich-
mond to France and England. The Southern Confederacy
was at that time 'desperately anxious to secure recognition
from the various European powers, even more so than the
Soviet government at Moscow has been in recent months,
but with this difference that they were everywhere unsuc-
cessful. The Trent was boarded shortly after leaving the
port of her departure by the United States crusier San
Jacinto, Captain Charles Walker commanding, and search
for and seizure was made of Messrs Mason and Sliddel,
after some violent personal resistance on their part. The
Trent proceeded on her way, arrived in England, the
Captain told his story to the authorities and things began
to happen. The fighting spirit of Englan'd rose at once.
She demanded an apology of the United States government,
instant restoration of the two commissioners and immedi-
ately began her preparations for war.
In the United States the incident had been hailed with
noisy satisfaction. The men of the North felt that they
had slipped one over on both the Confederacy and England.
When the demand for an apology arrived in due
time, however, the aspect of affairs changed. They realized
there was trouble ahead. The great mass of the people
were for instant acceptance of war. They were fighting
one half of their own country already ; why not take on
an outsider as well while they were at it ? But the occu-
—72—
NO. THREE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
pant of the White House at that time, a long lean man
from Illinois with an uncanny gift of seeing far into the
future, saw things in a different light. He reminded his
councillors that they had committed the very offence for
which the United States had made war on Britain in 1812.
He overlooked those violations of neutrality England ha)d
already committed, which she continued throughout the
Civil War and afterwards paid so dearly for in the court
of arbitration which decided the Alabama claims. "One
war at a time," said Lincoln. "Let us first subdue the South
and then, when peace has come, deal with Britain." So the
apology demanded was made, the two commissioners were
given their liberty and another senseless war was happily
averted, largely due to the hard common sense of one man.
Would that there were more statesmen like him.
The reader will naturally ask what all this had to do
with a township in Grey County. It may be answered
that the event had its reactions even there. Throughout
Canada the Trent affair, as it was subsequently called,
roused an intense flame of patriotism. Mars became the
populai* deity. Volunteer companies and regiments were
raised and recruited everywhere, independent of the
government. There was no pay ; no arms, no accoutre-
ments either. In an intense wave of loyalty the people
recognized that something must be done, and at once. An
average of six or seven companies were formed in every
county in Ontario. Among them was enrolled the Leith
Company, Provisional Rifles, which was aftenvai'ds
gazetted as Number Three Company, Thirty First Battalion
of Grey County.
This was in 1862 and before the excitement caused by
the Trent affair had subsided. The men were enrolled that
year and at the first meeting of the new company Mr.
Jas. Cannon, who had been active in the work of organ-
ization and recruiting, was unanimously elected Captain.
—73—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The company's establishment consisted of three com-
missioned officers and fifty-four non-commissioned officers
and men. Their names as they appear on the muster rolls
of the year 1866 were as follows :
Toronto, June 3rd, 1866.
Muster roll, number tliree company, First Provisional
Battalion Rifles : —
Captain — James Cannon, Sr ;
Lieutenant — James Pattison Telford ;
Ensign — Robert Vanwyck ;
Sergeants —
J. S. Wilson ;
James Cannon, Jr ;
Wm. Armstrong ;
Malcolm MacNeil ;
Corporals —
John Turnbull ;
James Grady ;
Wm. Armstrong ;
William Cannon ;
Lance Corporals —
Gilbert MacKay ;
Neil MacNeil ;
Bugler — Donald MacKay ;
Privates —
John Armstrong, Andrew Biggar, Thomas Brown, William
Buzza, John Cathrae, George A. Cameron, Andrew Cameron,
Thomas Cameron, Benjamin Cameron, Thomas Campbell,
John Campbell, Rowland Campbell, Colin Campbell, Patrick
Downie, Thomas Dennison, Leslie Dixon, Hugh Elliot, John
Ead, John Grady, John Hogg, James Hogg, Charles Lemon,
John I^fler, Ronald Livingstone, John Lemon, William
—74—
NO. THREE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
MacKay, John MacKay, Donald Mac Kay, James MacDowall,
Duncan McTavish, Henry Moore, William Mathieson,
Andrew MacLean, Duncan Morrison, William Nesbit, Daniel
North, Charles Noble, John Piatt, George Riddell, John
Wilson, William Wilson.
The names of these men should be perpetuated in
grateful remembrance bj^ the people of Sydenham, for
they were the first in the history of the township to offer
their services to their country, the occasion being the
P'enian raid of 1866, when this muster roll was compiled.
A cui'sory glance over the roll would at first lead the
reader to believe the men had been recruited in a parish
of the Highlands of Scotland. Cut the Camerons, the
Campbells, the MacKays, the MacNeils and various other
Macs out of it and little is left. They were a brawny lot
of young Celts too, these Highlanders from the Lake Shore
Line. From the very beginning the Company was famous
for the physique of its men ; the sons of Anak had nothing
on them for size. For many years afterwards Number
Three could be picked out in a brigade by reason of the
great average height of its rank and file and they all had
physical strength proportionate to their height. "As fine
a body of men as I have ever seen in Canada," said Lieut-
Colonel Dennison, in speaking of them on their arrival in
Toionto during the Fenian invasion, "but the oflficers are
not worth a damn !" It is gratifying to know the Colonel
subsequently changed his opinion as to the oflficers.
After its first organization the company met for di'ill
once a week at Dunedin, as Annan was then called. The
drill hall, still standing, was erected there but has long
since lost its martial uses. The equipment was furnished
in part by the Imperial Government arid there was reason
to believe, from some of the markings on the overcoats and
other accoutrements, they had seen sei*vice at Sebastopol,
in the Crimea. The first instructors were Captain, after-
—75—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
wai'ds Col. Brodie, and his son Vivian Brodie. Captain Chas.
Noble, an old veteran who had seen active service in Spain
and whose fine soldierly appearance is still remembered by
old residents, also acted as instructor, drilling the company
in his usual thorough manner. At a later date two in-
structors from the regular forces, Sergeants Kelly and
Wai^d, were sent by the goverament to assist in instruction.
The latter was a non-commissioned officer from the
Grenadier Guards and the company rapidly grew proficient
in drill.
This continued until 1866 when the company was
regularly gazetted, and as we are only concerned with the
beginning of things this notice will not extend beyond that
year. From its unique circumstances however, the Fenian
Raid of that year and the services rendered by Number
Three Company in repelling it should be briefly touched
upon.
The Fenian invasion, or rather the motives that
prompted it, and the passive attitude assumed toward it
by the United States government will always remain more
or less a mystery. It was a notoriously-known fact in the
winter of 1865-1866 that over one thousand Fenians were
assembled at Buffalo and drilling in anticipation of some
f.ort of trouble, but the United States authorities were
asleep, and they did nothing about it. The country was
recovering from the turmoils of civil war for one thing ;
for another they had the poorest excuse of a man for
president that ever held such a high office. It is difficult
to see how Andrew Johnston was even elected vice-
president. With the assassination of Lincoln he became
president and the best chief executive the Republic haid
over known until that time was succeeded by the woist.
He was drunk when he took the oath of office and acted
more like a charlatan than a sober statesman for all the
time lie filled it. Its high dignity was cheapened and de-
—76—
NO. THREE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
graded in a manner that has made every honest American
blush for shame since. It is certain, too, that the United
States had no reason to be other than grateful for the
part Canada had played in the war. The Honorable George
Brown had invoked his splendid eloquence in the cause of
freedom and against "the peculiar institution" of the South.
Forty-two thousand Canadians had crossed the border, en-
listed under the banners of the North and fought for the
slave's emancipation. One of the MacNeil brothers of
Leith was of them. Whether it was the antagonism
aroused over the Trent affair or the depre'dations of South-
em cruisers built in British yards in violation of the laws
of neutrality, the fact remains that there was a strong
hostile feeling toward Britain and all things British in
the United States for years after the war. Some American
historians, with amusing effrontery, have attempted to
show that the invasion would have been successful and
Toronto captured and burned but for the sudden activity
of the American government, when it was discovered what
was going on.
But such airy persiflage does not alter the facts. On
the morning of June 1st about fifteen huridred Fenians,
staiting from Buffalo and crossing the border, landed at
Fort Erie and the invasion was on. Had it not been that
many of them vvere drunk that morning and rem.ained so
during their hectic stay in Canada until their hurried de-
parture, the consequences might have been more serious
than they were. These Irish Americans were the scum
and offscouring, the riff-raff of the armies. North and
South. But the Great War taught us the old lesson anew
that a bad man may be a very brave one and that depraved
criminals sometimes make excellent soldiers, just as paci-
fists are often the most useful citizens in times of peace.
The dangers or extent of the invasion seem to have
been matters in which most Canadians were utterly in the
—77—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
dark. Rumors, magnified until they became preposterous,
were rife everywhere. Probably this was because the
telegraph system was still so limited in scope. These
rumors spread to Grey County and on the morning of May
Sth, while the Reverend Alexander Hunter was conducting
a service in the Leith church, a new fledged one spread
something like a panic in his congregation that must have
seemed amusing to many of them when the facts were
known. In the mi^dst of the discourse the door opened and
Mr. Leslie Dixon walked rapidly to the pulpit, where he
whispered a message in the ear of a member of the Session.
He heard it with the most admirable composure and after
the messenger had departed announced to the people that
there was reason to believe a large party of Fenians was
coming up the bay in an armed flotilla. The assembly im-
mediately dispersed with far more haste than dignity. The
strange part of it seems to be that even the minister be-
lieved the report. The incredibility of Fenians making
their appearance in such an out-of-the-way spot never
crossed the min'ds of the watchers on the beach, to whom
the advance of these strange craft must have appeai'ed
pretty much like the approach of the Spanish Armada on
the coasts of England did to the lighters of the beacon fires
of warning, in the reign of good Queen Bess. However, the
mirage, or whatever it was that caused the optical illusion,
lifted, and the threatened cloud of invasion turned out to
be a number of canoes coming from Cape Croker laden
with Indians, who doubtless would have been diverted
had they known the sensation they had stirred up. This
is only a solitary instance of the alarms, many of them
even more ridiculous, that filled the country.
On the morning of June 2nd, Mr. Joseph Parker,
having ridden all night, arrived at Dunedin from Colling-
wood bearing a telegram which, by a misunderstanding
too lengthy to explain here, had been interpeted as orders
—78—
NO. THREE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
for number three company to proceed to the front. The
company mustered in full force at Leith, hurried good-byes
were paid to relatives and they embarked on the steamer
Clifton for Collingwood. There was no telegraphic com-
munication between Owen Sound and that town at the time,
else a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding might
have been averted. Number Two company of Owen
Sound had gone to the frontier at Sarnia. After the
company had embarked on the Clifton, the officers found
aboard ship Major George Gordon to whom the telegram
brought by Mr. Parker to Dunedin from Collingwood was
addressed, and, after a vexatious tangle was unravelled,
it was discovered the Leith company were proceeding to
Toronto without orders. But British soldiers are not in
the habit of turning back ankJ after a momentary consulta-
tion among the officers it was decided to go on.
The Fenians, as has been stated, were an unknown
quantity and the men of Number Three Company might
have had a long and bloody campaign ahead of them for
all they knew. But certain it is that never did soldiers
march away to war with such gay abandon as these men
from Leith and the Lake Shore Line. Certain it is, too,
that when the Clifton cast off her lines at Leith dock she
left sad and anxious hearts behind. The horrors of war
were fresh in the min'ds of the older people at least. Little
more than a year before Lee and his legions had surrend-
ered to Grant at Appotmattox Court House, and the most
sanguinary and costly war in all history up to that date
had ended at last. The bloody battles of the early years
of the Civil War, Shiloh, Manassas, Fredricksburg, Chic-
kamauga, Chancellorsville, Malvern Hill, Vicksburg, Gettys-
burg and Antietam, just to mention a few among many,
and the desperate fighting around Richmond in the summer
of 1864 when Grant inexorably hammered the life out of
Lee, were recent remembrances that must have caused
—79—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
many a sleepless night in Sydenham. Let no man cherish
the fond delusion that Americans, of that day at least, were
too proud or afraid to fight. The casualties in many of
these battles per man engaged were higher than in the
Peninsular War, the Waterloo campaign, the Crimean or
Franco-Prussion wars or even the Great War itself. How-
many sad homes would there be in Sydenham should her
boys engage in battles where the casualty lists were even
a hundred fold less ? We sometimes smile at the Raid now
but the danger then seemed imminent and real.
Aboai^d the Clifton however there were no signs of
depression. Far from it. The stalwart six-footers of
Number Three were in the highest spirits and when they
debarked at Collingwood and were joined by the company
from that town for the journey by rail to Toronto the
proceedings grew hilarious. The coaches were badly
crowded and many of the Collingwood men crawled out
on the roofs, claiming they needed m.ore air. The late Mr.
Neil MacNeil of Leith once told the author that the trip
Toronto-ward was the noisiest one he ever made in his life.
What added to the general excitement were the wild re-
ports, met with at every station as they stopped at it, of
an engagement at that moment raging between the Fenians
and the forces that had been hurridly concentrated to
repel the invasion. The company "pote," as Mr. Dooley has
called him, had suddenly found his voice and he improvised
war songs and parodies upon the spot suitable to the cir-
cumstances. The Civil War had been prolific in war songs
and some of these were pressed into service. George
Root's stirring war ode, "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the boys
go marching" was a favorite and was parodied by one of
the aforesaid "potes" about as follows :
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the boys go marching.
Cheer up ! let the Fenians come,
—80—
I
NO. THREE CO:iIPANY, 31st REGIMENT
Foi beneath the Union Jack v/e will drive the back
And we'll fight for our dear old Canadian home.
Impromptu concerts were organized and the same kind of
orations delivered. In the m.idst of such unwarlike scenes
the train arrived at Toronto, about midnight of the same
day on which they ha'd left Leith. Here they found a
number of dead and wounded from the engagement being
brought into Toronto and some Fenian prisoners also.
The company marched to the large drill hall and here
found a scene of excitement beyond anything they had
ever witnessed. Companies were being drilled by their
officers, civilians were singing patriotic songs, arms and
accoutrements and ball ammunition were being serve'd
out while a continuous roar like reverberating thunder
shook the building. "It was magnificent but it was not
war" as a military observer said of the charge of the Six
Hundred. The men of Number Three with their officers
then started a long hunt for something to eat and finally
bagged a meal in a small bakery, the commissary depart-
ment having collapsed.
Two days later they were formed, with six other com-
panies, into a provisional battalion under the command of
Col. A. M. Smith, President of the Royal Canadian Bank of
Toronto ; the battalion imme*diately boarded a train for
Kingston and patrolled the roads between that city and
Toronto for three days. They were afterwards billeted in
Kmgston for ten days, when they were moved to Coburg.
Here they remained until June 21st when orders were
received for them to return home. This they did and
within thirty days from the tdate of embarkation at Leith
all had returned to their usual occupations. The invasion
had passed into history.
Thus ended the campaign of the Fenian Raid. Theo-
dore Roosevelt once said of the Spanish American war
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
that the great trouble was there was not enough wai' to
go ai'ound for the boys who went to Cuba. The same might
be said of the Fenian invasion. It was as indefensible as
Germany's invasion of Belguim but had these cutthroat
scoundrels been allowed to wreak their own sweet will upon
us our plight might even have been worse than that of
the Belgians. A m^al and a grant of land in Northera
Ontario were, about 1900, made to each veteran who had
served in the Raid, by the Ontario government.
An incident in the history of the Company that excited
great local interest at the time, was the presentation of
a beautiful set of colors to the officers and men, by the
ladies of the neighborhood. During the winter of 1868-67
while the Raid was still fresh in their minds, the ladies
busied themselves in spare moments in making a large blue
silk flag, which from the accounts that have come down to
us must have been the most gorgeous thing of its kind.
March 22nd, 1867 was the (date set for the presentation
ceremony, which was held in the open air and on the green
in front of the Annan schoolhouse. It was a chilly season
of the year for an open air event but the fires of patrotism
were burning brightly enough at the time to ward off any
physical discomfort. The Company being drawn at Atten-
tion with the officers in their respective stations, the
presentation address was read by Mrs. Peter Taylor and
a suitable reply was made by Captain Telford. Our regret
is that their considerable length makes the insertion of
these respective addresses impossible as they throw a
valuable light upon the general feeling excited by the Raid.
Miss Campbell then formally presented the colors to the
keeping of the Company and the Rev. Robert Dewar
offered up a short but appropriate prayer.
On such an occasion it was inevitable that the poetic
muse should seek expression in some shape. It has been
said that every man is at some time in his life obsessed
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NO. THREE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
with the idea he is a born poet. Some survive the notion ;
others persist in it until the end of their days. The passion
for versification seems to have run rife at the time and
a most warlike ode had been prepared for the event by
a local poet whose two sons ha'd gone to Toronto in the
previous yeai' with the confident expectation of getting to
grips with the Fenians. At this point in the ceremony it
was read by Hugh Reid, and for the edification
of our readers it is appended in full below. The
author evidently took great advantage of what is called
poetic license but the martial ardor it inspired must have
more than compensated for any deficiency in poetic m.erit
found in its lines.
Ye stalwart sons of patriots true,
Accept from us these colors blue,
Let deeds of yours ne'er stain the hue
That leads you in the fight.
On Scotia's hills, with heather red —
On Emerald Isle, by Shannon fed —
On Huron's shores your sons were bred —
Banded to guard the right.
Come Saxons ! trusty as your steel,
From Merry England, true and leal —
Let Dougald's stirring pibroch peal
Along the martial line.
Let not fell discord wreck your band,
Your honor guard with heart and hand.
As brothers live — as brothers stand —
When called to face the foe.
Let not the foreign despot's call
To arms your heats of oak appal ;
For freedom stand — for freedom fall —
And lay the miscreant low.
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Boast not of deeds as yet unborn,
The shock of war you've yet to learn ;
Let glorious Bruce and Bannockburn
Your watchword ever be.
For Queen and Country draw your blades,
Your homes — your friends — your blooming maids ;
Then trust in Heaven, which ever aids
The valiant and the free.
When the shrill bugle sounds alarni
Join rank to rank and arm to arm.
The patriot's zeal your breasts shall warm —
Strike ! Strike for Liberty !
This gift of the muse, evidently written in imitation
of the Scottish national anthem, was received with loud
applause by the whole assemblage. The wrappings that con-
fined the flag were then removed and as the glorious stand-
ard of old England unfolded to the breeze the stirring asso-
ciations of a thousand years that have enshrined the cross of
St. George in the heails of millions of her subjects in every
quarter of the globe swept through the gathering and found
vent in a spontaneous cheer, repeated time and again. It
was a convincing testimonial on the part of the stout
hearted men of Sj^denham, soldiers and civilians alike, of
their attachment to monarchial institutions and the British
Crown. The outburst having subsided, three cheers for
Hei Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, were called for
and were given with rousing fervor. This marked the con-
clusion of the ceremony. What seems to have been an
indispensable part of such occasions at tliat time followed
at VanWyck's Hotel the same evening, \yhen the officers
and men of No. 3 Company with their invited guests to the
number of ninety sat down to a sumptuous repast prepared
by the genial proprietor, Robert VanWyck himself, to which
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NO. THPwEE COMPANY, 31st REGIMENT
we may be sure substantial justice was done. The whole
event passeid off in the happiest possible manner and with-
out the slig-htest untoward occurrence to mar its harmony.
Of the officers of Number Three who served, Lieuten-
ant Telford, afterwards Colonel of the Thirty First Bat-
talion, and now in his eighty-sixth year alone survives.
Of the non-commissioned officers and privates it is impos-
sible to speak with like certainty, but by far the greater
number have crossed the silent river and, let us hope, have
found eternal peace.
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo ;
No more on Life's paralde shall meet
That brave and gallant few.
On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread ;
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
Glancing briefly at the subsequent history of the
company we find Lieutenant Telford raised to the captaincy,
shortly after the Raid, Captain Cannon having become
Major of the Battalion. In 1888 Captain Telford received
another promotion and William Ross of Leith was given the
rank of Captain, which he held until 1891, resigning in
that year. He was succeded by Robert McKnight of Owen
Sound and a year or so later the headquarters of the Com-
pany were moved to Owen Sound and Number Three Com-
pany of Leith, as such, was numbered among the things
that were. Leith had been, until that time, the only rural
community in Grey from which a company had been re-
cruited for the 31st Regiment.
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DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
CHAPTER VI
In 1854, James Wilson, of Gait, came up to Leith and,
after a survey of the village, bought out Mr. Telfer's in-
terest in it, lock, stock and barrel. The townplot at this
time comprised four hundred and sixty acres, although
only a minor portion had been surveyed into building
lots. The consideration is said to have been sixteen
hundred pounds, or nearly eight thousand dollars, and if
this was the price actually paid, Mr. Wilson's proper
vocation should have been that of a real estate dealer, as
we shall see a little further on. He was what might have
been called an absentee landlord, as he returned to Gait
and never looked near his purchase again until after he
had sold it three years later.
Mr. Wilson was a native of Ayr —
"Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses.
For honest men and bonny lasses."
and in his youthful years had gone to school there with
William Veitch, who, at the time the former came to Leith,
was following his trade of cabinet making in the new Ayr
that had been founded in Ontario. Mr. Veitch came up to
Leith with his old schoolmate, and while there bought the
faiTn on Concession A about two miles below the village,
then owned by Robert Grierson, and now by his son Walter.
He then went back to Waterloo County and worked at his
trade, until he had accumulated enough money to pay for
it in full, in the interim renting the farm to Duncan
Morrison. He returned to Leith in 1862, and took
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DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
possession. He had been successful as a tradesman and
was fully as successful as a farmer. Well versed in
mechanics, he was an advanced mathematician who
thoroughly understood the two-foot, or carpenter's square,
and could work out many intricate problems upon it.
Mr. Wilson seems to have taken little interest in Leith,
and to have effected little improvement there. After selling-
the townplot three years later, or in 1857, he ma'de a trip
back to Scotland, and must have lived in regal style while
away. He bought a costly gold watch while in the Old
Land, and was wont to show it to friends after his return
to Canada, with the remark that it was all that was left of
his interest in Leith. In 1862 he came at last to Owen
Sound, and was for several years in the hotel business
there. Some old residents of the City still remember him.
In 1857 Adam Ainslie, then an attorney of Gait, became
interested in the Sydenham village and its possibilities.
With his cousin, George Ainslie, who had arrived in Gait
from Edinburgh, he formed a partnership, and bought it
just as Mr. Wilson bought it, with the difference that he
had never seen it when he paid the purchase price. Mr.
Wilson sold out for twenty thousand dollars, and as the
whole amount was at once placed in his hands, it becomes
apparent that his trip to Scotland must have been one of
voluptuous and sensational luxury, for those days at least.
Mr, Ainslie came to Leith in 1857, looked over the property,
and returne^d to Gait. He moved up with his wife, a family
of three, and all household effects, in the following year,
but shortly afterward his relative, for some reason, dis-
solved the partnership, and Mr. Ainslie took over his share.
He moved into the Mill House referred to in a previous
chapter, and lived there several years. Then another
move was made to a house on the opposite bank of the
Water o' Leith, and in this house he lived until he left the
village in 1888.
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAIVI
These are the facts in connection with the two sales
of Leith in the fifties, as far as it has been possible to
ascertain them from a number of authorities who were not
always in agreement upon a few minor details, but whose
accounts of the transactions, taken in a general sense,
agree pretty closely. The amount paid by Mr. Ainslie was
paid down, as stated above, and there may have been
further payments, but if there were nobody knows of them.
It will be acknowledged, however, that the man who can
more than double his money, in a deal of this kind, inside
of three years, is born for some other profession besides
hotel keeping. However, the times were in Mr. Wilson's
favor. We sometimes talk of good times now, as though
in the past they never had anything but hard times. The
truth is that the ten years following 1855 were, for Canada,
the most prosperous she ever enjoyed. The general flow
of population was not then, as now, from the rural districts
to the towns, but precisely in the opposite direction. The
wilderness an'd the solitary places were being made glad
by men from the towns and cities, who were moving out
to the new settlements and taking up the new vocation of
farming. Practically the whole Lake Shore Line was
settled by men who left the towns and cities of Scotland
to come to Canada and make new homes in the bush. They
were doing the same thing in many Canadian cities too,
though on a smaller scale, and it was what might be called
a healthy movement of population. We can hardly conceive
of such a movement at the present time, and we can
imagine the roar of indignation that would go up from our
cities which are striving might and main, by Chambers of
Commerce and Boai^ds of Trade, to increase their various
populations if such a movement ever started. What will
be the end of the present migration from the country to
the cities, Heaven alone knows. Sydney now has a popu-
lation of one million, or one fifth that of Australia. Buenos
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develop:ment and decay
Ayres has two millions, or about the same proportion of
the Argentine. The census of 1920, in the United States,
showed fifty-three per cent of the population to be living
in cities or towns of over two thousand five hundred, and a
town that size can hardly be called a rural community. We
find farmers of little more than middle age retiring to the
cities, to settle down and enjoy life. Perhaps they do, after
a fashion. But they could live much more cheaply — and
securely — in the country, and find there the life most worth
living if they only had the mental capacity to appreciate
it. The old saying still holds good, that man made the town
but God made the country, and we are speaking from a
long experience in city life and the artificial pleasures and
fleeting joys to be found there. There is a restlessness
and craving for excitement in the young people of our
cities that bodes ill for the future of the countr}'. They
value an eklucation, but they value it only for the chances
it aflfords them of entering some profession, where they
will escape the — to them — degradation of having to soil
their hands in the occupation of the mechanic or the
farmer. This restlessness they naturally communicate to
the young people of the country, and in consequence we find
our universities crowded with young men and women who
have no conception whatever of the true value of higher
education, but who do have an unworthy and ill-concealed
contempt for all forms of manual labor. They are loud in
their denunciations of the exorbitant demands of the labor
unions, yet many of them are satisfied to accept half the
money earaed by a mechanic in the buiMing trades if only
they are spared the indignity of honest labor with their
hands. It is not a healthy symptom in the body politic,
and thoughtful men are everywhere growing alarmed over
it.
TuiTiing again to the decade ending in the year 1866,
it is not hard to trace the prosperity of those years in
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Canada, or the activity in the agricultural industry which
was naturally reflected in such villages as Leith. In 1855
a reciprocity treaty was entei'ed into between Canada and
the United States, which inclu'ded in its provisions
practically all products of the farm, and a list of manufac-
tured articles as well. It was of immense benefit to both
countries, but particularly so to Canada. Those were the
days when farms were paid off and mortgages raised in
Sydenham, and the country in general prospered as never
before. The Civil War of the sixties swelled trade to
enormous proportions, but it was indirectly the cause of
the abrogation of the treaty, in 1866. The feeling in the
United States toward Britain, in that year, was a sore one,
and prompted their statesmen in refusing to renew it for
another ten years. This was, we believe, a mistake on their
part, but it is a mistake that has since been copied, and with
far less reason, by our own statesmen and people. In spite
of all efforts to the contrary, on both sides of the line we
have since had a bariier of customs duties between the two
countries, just as senseless and irritating as would be a line
of forts garrisoned by regiments of soldiers along the
boundai'y from one ocean to the other. It is a constant
source of vexation and heartburning to the people on each
side of it. On one side the wall will be raised temporarily,
to prevent the people on that side from buying where they
can buy to the greatest advantage, as though this were a
sin, and something to be shunned. On the other side, the
wall is raised in places still higher in reprisal, and thus the
game goes on, with the few in both countries encouraging
it, and fattening at the expense of the many. The men of
1855 were wiser in their day and generation than we have
ever been since, for a,t least they could see no sense in cut-
ting off the nose to spite the face.
But to our story. Once fairly settled, Mr. Ainslie took
a good look around him, and decided on a number of in-
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DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
vestments in his new possession wliich seemed to him as
promising of profit. Before following him in these, it will
be well to take a good look at the man himself. One is
naturally interested in the man who, in 1857, risked twenty
thousand kiollars — equal to at least forty-five or fifty
thousand dollars sixty-five years later — on a property he
had never seen. Such a man would have made a heavy
plunger in the Wall Street of our own times.
He was bom on the 13th of April, 1807, at Begbie, in
Haddington-shire, Begbie being the estate owned by
Archibald Ainslie, his father, who was a gentleman famier.
Ainslie the elder was a man who could give his son every
advantage, and the young Adam was sent to the Hadding-
ton Grammar School. Haddington is the county seat in
the shii'e of the same name, and is only fifteen miles from
Edinburgh. Here he had, for a school-mate, the future
wife of the Sage of Ecclefechan, Thomas Carlyle, in the
person of Jennie Welch. Of his personal opinion of that
young lady we are left in ignorance, but it is well known
that her married life with the cranky Thomas was not of
the happiest description. When fourteen years of age he
graduated from this school, and in November, 1821, he went
up to London and was indentured in the study of law,
with Weir & Smith, the foiTner gentlemen being his uncle.
The law course covered five years, and at its conclusion
Mr. Ainslie, then a full-fledged barrister, went to Gibralter.
Here he practised law for eight years very successfully,
but a violent outbreak of yellow fever, of which he was
one of the victims who happily recovered, led to his decision
to quit the Rock and emigrate to Canada. He left in 1834,
taking passage in the brig Williams, Captain Lamson,
master. The voyage took nearly five weeks, and Mr. Ainslie
paid one hundred dollars for his fare, which seems a large
amount for passage on a sailing vessel. At last he arrived,
and decided upon coming to Gait, which was then an active
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7
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
village of two hun'dred and fifty inhabitants. It did not
have so large a population at the end of 1834, for in the sum-
mer of that year a travelling menagerie brought the cholera
to the village, and in the week that followed nearly one
fifth of the inhabitants fell victims to the scourge it left
behind. The outbreak was long remembered as one of the
worst of its kind that ever visited Canada. A history of
the eai'ly days of Dumfries township and the town of Gait,
written by the Hon, James Young and published in 1880,
teems with references to Adam Ainslie, in that portion of
the narrative covering the years 1834 to 1857, the latter
being the year he first came up to Leith. Mr. Ainslie
arrived in November, several months after the visitation,
and one of the first difficulties he encountered was the fact
that, under the laws of Upper Canada, he would not be
allowed to practise his profession. This seemed a serious
obstacle for a time, but the disability was removed by a
special Act of Parliament, and the new shingle was soon
hung out. In 1837 the MacKenzie rebellion happened along
to add to the gaiety of nations, and Mr. Ainslie, always an
intense loyalist, figured in it as a captain in the 11th Gore
Militia. The rebellion roused intense excitement around
Gait, as it was supposed that the unfortunate Lount and
Matthews were conceale^d in a house there for a time, but
this turned out to be incorrect.
Municipal honors came in due time to Mr. Ainslie. Gait
was incorporated as a village in 1850, with a little over two
thousand inhabitants, and he was elected to the Council
several times. In 1856 he was elected Reeve, and in the fol-
lowing year, Gait having in the interim been incorp-
orated as a town, he was offered the mayoralty but declined,
as his intention was then fixed to come to Leith. In 1837
the macdamizing of the Dundas and Waterloo road was
commenced by the Provincial Government, anid he was ap-
pointed as one of the commissioners to carry it out. He
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DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
served twelve years on this commission, and was for some
years its chairman.
It was shortly before his fortieth year before he
decided that it is not good for a man to be alone, and took
unto himself a wife. The lady in the case was Isabella
Miller, also of Gait. She was a daughter of John Miller,
who, before coming to America, had owned an estate near
Hawick, that city in Roxburghshire which has figured so
largely in our naiTative. The Millers came first to the State
of New Jersey, but later moved to Gait. Mrs. Ainslie, about
the time of her marriage, is said to have borne a remark-
able resemblance to Queen Victoria. The union was a
happy one and three children were born to it.
Despite his many activities there, Mr. Ainslie's law
practise in Gait seems to have been an extensive one from
the very beginning. In 1837 he was engaged as counsel
for one of the parties thereto in litigation over a disputed
title, the details of which are too lengthy for recital here.
This lawsuit, which attracted a great deal of interest
throughout Upper Canada, gave rise to an incident hap-
pening during the proceedings which illustrates the joviality
of his disposition, and his love of always mixing pleasure
with business when it was possible to do so without neglect-
ing the interests of his clients. The Hon. James Young
refers to it in considerable length in the history of Gait,
referred to above, so it should be worthy of recounting here.
At a certain stage in the lawsuit, Mr. Ainslie found it advis-
able to go to Elora in company with two other gentlemen,
Messrs. Shade an!d Chapman, in an effort to get confirma-
tion of his client's title. The three arranged to drive to
Elora, and then, when the business had been transacted,
build a raft and fish down the Grand River home again.
It may be added that their mission was successful, and that
for a consideration of $150 the Elora man they had gone to
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
interview promised to come down to Mi-. Ainslie's office
and confirm the title of his client, a gentleman named
MacKenzie.
However, it is with their journey back to Gait by raft
we are concerned nov/. This was described many years
later in a letter from Mr, Ainslie to Mr. Young-, from whose
history it is copied ad verbatim.
"We constructed a raft about four miles below Elora.
A large stone tied to a rope served as an anchor, and we
used it at the foot of the rapids. We were most successful
in fishing. The dry cedar logs of the raft having become
water-logged, and the raft inconveniently low, ]Mr. Shade
determined to replenish it with an additional supply of
logs from a large collection of drift stuff at the head o* a
/apid we were nearing. When we arrived at it he called on
nie to jump off, wliich I at once did, with my coat over my
arm, a bottle of whiskey in my left hand, and my fishing-
rod in my right. At the same instant Chapman threw the
stone on the bank, but the current being very strong pulled
it off, and before I could turn around Shade in a loud voice
oi^dered me to jump on again but —
"Time and tide for no man bide."
I fully realized on this occasion the truth of this adage.
Suddenly wheeling to the right about face, I saw the raft
rapidly receding from the shore. I made a desperate spring
to regain it, but alas ! merely touched it with my foot, and
was then and there bodily immersed in the rapidly flowing
fluid !
When I regained my feet my fellow voyagers were a
long way down the rapid. On arriving at still water they
came to anchor, and had their risible faculties intensely ex-
cited by seeing me wading to my middle down the rapids
to I'ejoin them. I still, however, held onto my coat, the rod,
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DEVELOPINIENT AND DECAY
Hnd the bottle of whiskey, and I found the last most accept-
able when I regained the raft. I thought I had been
ill-used, and had a right to complain of somebody, but the
more I complained the more they laughed, and replied to
all my remonstrances by recommending me to take another
pull at the bottle I We took up our quarters that night at
old William Davidson's, in Woolwich, where I got my clothes
dried at the kitchen fire. The next afternoon we reached
home."
"This brings to my mind another acquatic occurrence.
Many years ago New Hope (now Hespeler) was a favorite
place of resort to fish for trout. One day I was one of a
party to go there. My companions were the three Messrs.
Dickson. After fishing some time the Hon. Robert Dickson,
in crossing the stream, slipped off a plank into the pond
of Aberholtzer's saw-mill. After scrambling out to the
bank he deliberately divested himself of his clothing, which
he hung up on stumps to 'dry. He then improvised a sort
of Zulu costume, and with the utmost sang froid continued
to pull the trout from the stream until his clothing was fit
to put on again ! Those were jolly days and they seem now
to have passed all too quickly."
From the tenor of this letter from the Gait attorney
to the author of its history, it will be inferred that the
former gentleman was a keen sportsman, as well as an ex-
cellent lawyer, and this inference is correct. Like father,
like son. In later years, at Leith, his son John became one
of the keenest sportsmen as well as one of the best all
round athletes in Sydenham township.
One little detail of the history of the Waterloo County
village will be of interest at this point. In 1838 William
Dickson, who had founded it, disposed of two hundred acres
of lan'd covering what is now the best portion of Gait, on the
west side of the Grand River, and an additional hundred
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
acres in Dumfries township, with liis entire interest in
Dumfries Mills, to Absalom Shade, the consideration as
stated in the deed amounting to two thousand five hundred
pounds, or about $12,225.00. In deeding the aforesaid two
thousand acres to Mr. Shade, among the reservations made
by Mr. Dickson was one lot for Adam Ainslie, north of
Main and east of Ainslie Street. Mr. Dickson and the
jovial attorney were evidently on intimate and friendly
teiTns when the former not only reserved from the sale a
lot for the latter's benefit, but also honored him by
naming what is now one of Gait's leading throughfares
after him. Gait must have had at this time between four
and five hundred inhabitants, as the village was growing
rapidly, having entirely recovered from the cholera scai'e.
Yet Mr. Dickson disposed of the larger part of his interests
there for about $8,000. less than Mr. Ainslie paid for
a far smaller interest in the village of Leith, twenty years
later, when the latter place had a population of about one
hundred. Putting two and two together it becomes plain
that in 1860 the prospects for future prosperity in Leith
were pretty I'osy.
In reference to what may seem rather an extended
notice of Gait, it may be explained that from 1840 until
1860, and even later, that town occupied by far a larger
place in the thoughts and interests of our first pioneers than
it has since 'done in those of their children. Many of the
first arrivals in Owen Sound came from there, and even in
greater measure they came to the Lake Shore Line and
vicinity of Leith. Not that they were encouraged to come
by Galtonians, liowever. Those who remained behind had
the most harrowing stories to tell the dear departing ones
of the hardships and positive dangers that awaited them up
in the region of Georgian Bay. The winters were pictured
as being six months long and incredibly severe ; their only
neighbors would be roving bands of redskins. The Queen's
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DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
Bush was filled with wild animals of the fiercest description,
and if they escaped starving to death these savage beasts
would keep them in a constant dread worse than death
itself. This stoiy is not overdrawn. It is what many of
the inhabitants of Gait in that day actually believed. Many
of those who left did so with the pleasing assurance ringing
in their ears that it would not be a year until they were
back again. They themselves had some fearful and wonder-
ful notions of the new home they were coming to. They
never dreamed that, as an instance, fruit trees could be
raised here at all. Those who made the first experiments
in fruit growing were openly scoffeid at. All this seems
strange to us now, but 'twas ever thus. The stay-at-homes
will always find some reason for continuing to stay there,
and the adventurer who fares forth in quest of fresh fields
to conquer, while he may not always succeed, at least should
be given credit for being willing to take his chance.
What do we find now ? We find, for one thing, that
we can raise as fine apples, plums and pears as are grown
anywhere in the Dominion, in point of flavor at least. We
find Owen Sound, in spite of its comparative isolation a
larger city than Gait, although founded twenty-four years
later. When compared with some of its sister cities having
greater natural advantages, Owen Sound has m^de truly
wonderful progress.
But to return to Mr. Ainslie. For many years after
his coming to Gait in 1834 he had little competition in his
practice of law. There was but one other barrister in the
village, a gentleman named John Miller. As men in that
day were just as fond of litigation as they are at present,
and from all accounts even more so, and as, owing to
land speculation, there was a vast amount of conveyanc-
ing, etc., fortune seems to have smiled upon him. He
was in great demand at social events and as he had a keen
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
appreciation of forensic talent was often heard in the de-
bates of the villag'e. In 1841 the theatrical fever struck
Gait, with as much violence as the cholera had a few years
earliei', and a dramatic society was organized. The first
plays were presented in the Township Hall of Dumfries, a
building no sooner finished than it began to assume an air
of antiquity, and which was, in its last days, known as
"Noah's Ark." The opening performance was the well
known Rob Roy; Mr. Ainslie acted as prompter, and wrote
and delivered a clever prologue the night it was presented.
He also composed a chorus, "Hurrah for the village of Gait,
boys," which described in glowing detail what a great place
the village already was, and prophesied even greater and
grander things to come. Those who remember the fine
old Scottish gentleman himself can easily imagine how he
must have enjoyed himself that night ! He wielded at all
times a trenchant and eloquent pen, and it has sometimes
been a matter for surprise that he never adopted letters
as a profession. In politics he was from the very time of
his first landing in the country strongly conservative, and
a strong admirer of Sir John A. MacDonald. There are
not now many men in North Grey who attended the great
Liberal meeting in Owen Sound in 1878, when the Hon.
Alexander MacKenzie addressed the gathering in defence
of his four years' administration and asked for a further
lease of power, and possibly some even of these have for-
gotten how, when Mr. MacKenzie had concluded his address,
Ml. Ainslie rose from his seat in the audience and, with the
utmost decorum, propounded a few questions to the Liberal
Chieftan, which were received with the most respectful
attention and given an equally respectful answer. The
Honorable Alexander MacKenzie would have been honor-
able in any station in life ; whatever his deficiencies were,
he was nothing if not a gentleman.
—98—
DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
Until the day of his death Mr. Ainshe always mani-
fested the warmest interest in, and affection for, Gait.
He spent twenty-eight years there, certainly the most
prosperous, and possibly the happiest years of his life.
When he came to Leith his attention was called to the need
of a dock, and the building of this was his first under-
taking. It was built straight out into the bay, on the
, north side of the Water o' Leith, in 1861. There was a
depth of ten feet at the outer end, which was ample for
the light draught of the small steamers and sailing craft
of that period. It was cribbed all the way out, the cribs
being filled with stone found in the neighborhood. The
farmers of Leith and vicinity had then never heard of
such a thing as a booster, but they showed a most booster-
like spirit when the dock was built. Realizing that the
dock would be of great value to the village, they organized
a few bees and Mr. Ainslie thus had his stone drawn for
nothing. The oak snubbing posts were works of art. They
were nicely beveled on top, and rounded to a smaller
diameter at the floor of the dock than at the head. Leith was
at once made a fueling station for the wood-burning steam-
ers, and many thousands of cords passed over the dock
in the years that followed, to be fed to their furnaces.
An addition was built to the mill and here, shortly
j afterwards, the first telegraph office was opened,
in a small building at the east end of it. Mr. Ainslie
commenced grain buying, using part of the mill for storage,
but it was found too damp for that puipose and he soon
desisted. The mill pond was enlarged and the dam
strengthened, all these improvements on that building
being effected at considerable expense. The distillery was
running at full capacity at this time and the head distiller,
a Mr. Rochester, previously mentioned, had made several
improvements over the lax methods of his predecessor.
There was no more free whiskey for all who cared to come
—99—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
and take a dipperful from the vats at their pleasure. A
small storehouse for Mr. Rochester's product was built
down at the waterfront, just beside the dock. There is
an old, but true story, that one of the villagers stole a
whole barrel of booze from this building by going down
every morning before daylight, gaining access to the in-
side by some means known only to himself, filling his pail,
and scurrying furtively home with it. In time he was
suspected, caught with the goods on him, and was made
to pay for the whole barrel. At the prevailing price of
whiskey he would not have to pay so much, after all. And
if stolen fruit is always sweetest, think of how he must
have enjoyed licking up that stolen liquor !
Mr. Ainslie had different gangs of men working on
his various enterprises, and when he found they could not
get free liquor themselves by going to the distillery it was
his fashion to fill a quart bottle and start making the
rounds, giving each man a small "snort." Such an
employer should not have had much difficulty in hiring men.
/ The distillery ceased operations some time in 1864.
The reason for such cessation Avas said to be the heavy
I excise duty levied by the Upper Canada authorities about
! that time on hard liquors. It is positive that it was not
due to any slackening in the demand for its product.
The new proprietor of the village and its fortunes
used to have some funny experiences with his tenants and
would-be tenants. Among these latter was an old character
who answered to the homely name of Tommy Jones.
Tommy was a bachelor, probably for the good and
sufficient reason that no woman would consent to have him,
and like most bachelors his affections were centred on very
few objects in life. In fact, they narrowed themselves
down to one. That was whiskey, for which he had a tender
and loving regard indeed. He persuaded Mr. Ainslie into
—100—
DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
permission to start a garden on some vacant land adjacent
to Reefer's Creek, on the north side. Here he planted
some Indian cora and a variety of garden truck, which
was all very well. But the homing instinct seems to have
struck him, for he suddenly began operations in the con-
struction of a house and had made the excavation for a
cellar before Mr. Ainslie appeared on the scene to put a
crimp in his activities. He was ordered off the land bag
and baggage, but a huge hole in the ground remained for
many years as a monument to his blasted hopes. The
building of a row of summer cottages is at present pro-
jected, within two hundred j^ards of the spot. After that
Tommy made his home as previously, wherever the night
chanced to find him. A huge hogshead back of Glen's
tavern was one of his places of nightly repose. How he
came to his end nobody knows, but his dead body was
found in tlie bush back of the village, and where he is
buried everyone seems to have forgotten.
The list of inhabitants of the village, with their
several occupations, is given by W. W. Smith in his gaz-
etteer, published in 1865, and is as follows :
Adam Ainslie, proprietor of Leith Mills ; Richard
Alexander, laborer ; Peter Burr, blacksmith, Thomas Brown,
carpenter ; Arthur B. Cameron, carpenter ; George
Cameron, carpenter; Peter Cameron, carpenter; James
Clark, carpenter ; Michael Duffy, laborer ; Robert Grierson ;
John Lenfesty, miller, Leith INIills ; Charles Lemon, boot
and shoemaker ; Royal Moulton, inn-keeper, "Leith Hotel ;"
Henry Moore, teacher, boards at A. Ainslie's ; Anthony
Marshall, laborer ; Neil McNeil, laborer ; Malcolm McNeil,
laborer ; William McKeen, farmer ; Daniel North, laborer ;
Henry Rixon, boards at A. Ainslie's ; James Ross, post-
master ; John Ross, assistant ; James Ross, Jr.
—101—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The population of the village is given by the same
authority as being one hundred and ten, on the above date.
This may be so, but there are a few old people still living
in the neighborhood who are ready to testify that the
list of inhabitants as given by Mr. Smith is incomplete, and
that he also under estimated its population. The last sur-
vivor of those in the list passed away recently at Moosomin,
Sask, in the person of Malcolm McNeil ; he was at the same
time the last survivor of the old and highly respected
family of that name. He moved to Manitoba in 1882, and
prospered as a farmer. About a year or two after Mr.
Ainslie's coming to Leith and while his improvements were
under way Mr. McNeil was selected to take a census of the
village, floating population and all ; he found nearly three
hundred people there, and so reported. As an old timer
once regretfully said to us — "Leith was a-boomin' in them
days."
Mr. Smith also says that the draught of water at the
end of the old dock, built in 1861, was eight and one half
feet. This also may be true, but an old and excellent
authority is positive it was ten feet. However, it was in
the first half of the sixties the gradual subsiding of the
lake level first became apparent.
The steady advance in the clearing of the forests on
the shores of our inland seas was beginning to get in
its deadly work. Mr. Ainslie determined on a further ex-
tension out into the bay, and this was carried out, although
nobody can be found who can fix the exact year in
which it commenced. It was probably in 1870 — possibly
a little later, as men fifty eight and sixty yeai's of age
can remember seeing the pile driver at work on the ice.
The piles were driven in the winter, holes through the
ice being cut for the purpose, and when finished the dock
showed a depth of thirteen feet of water at the end. Had
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DEVELOPiNIENT AND DECAY
the old style construction been followed — cribbing filled with
stone — the dock would in all probability have stood much
longer than it did. An ell was built at the end, running-
at a right angle to the main dock and in a north-easterly
direction. On this cattle and wood sheds were erected, the
wood being hauled in the winter by the surrounding farmers
and stored there for the purpose previously mentioned.
If recollections sei-ves aright, the wood shed was about
fifteen or eighteen feet high. It was from the roof of this
building the young swimmers of the village — and some of
them not so young — were wont to dive into the waters of
the bay, when taking their swim after a hard day's v/ork.
As the planking on the surface of the dock was fully six
feet above that of the water, it can be readily seen that
this was no baby's dive. The bathing suits worn by the
strong swimmers of Leith in that day were all of an exact
likeness, both as to color and pattern. They were of a
style that was fashionable in the Garden of Eden, before
the serpent beguiled Eve. A man wearing the same suit
at the same place would in our day be subject to arrest —
but times change.
A list of steamboats and sailing craft calling at this
dock and its predecessor, in the ten or twelve years follow-
ing 1870, would include nearly all the same craft plying
to Owen Sound at that time. For many years the mails
came from Owen Sound by steamboat, the Frances Smith
being the last one utilized in this service. It was coming-
bi-weekly in 1865 ; nobody seems to remember when the
daily mail by land was established. The mails were dis-
tributed from the office in the store of Ross Brothers until
1875, and on their removal to Annan Arthur B. Cameron
became postmaster. At the time of his death, about
thirty-seven years ago, the office continued to be held by
members of his family and still remains there, to the
eminent satisfaction of all who make Leith their post
—103—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
office. The general store in connection with it was opened
in 1864, or sixty years ago, by the late Mr. Cameron, and
is still conducted by his eldest son, M}-. Arthur Cameron.
It is the solitary place of business in Leith that has survived
in the gradual decay of the village, but its record is a
unique one and it is to be doubted if it can be duplicated
in Grey County. "A Cameron never can yield."
The new dock was a source of endless expense from
the very beginning. It was exposed to the north and
north-easterly gales, the worst that sweep the bay. The
heavy seas raised by a storm from these directions, rushing
under its unprotected sides, tore up the plank flooring,
necessitating constant repairs. Had a breakwater a few
hundred yards long been built from the mouth of Reefer's
Creek out into the bay in a westerly direction, it would
have obviated all this, but the expense would have been
considerable, and the day of harbor grants and legislative
subsidies for such pui*poses was not yet, for Leith at any
rate. The place had no natural harbor advantages, and
with the steady lowering of the water levels it is easily
seen now that money so spent would have been thrown
away.
There were many mishaps during these periods of
heavy weather, one of which had rather an amusing sequel.
The schooner Maple Leaf, loaded with wheat, was caught
in one of them while moored to the dock, and threatened
to pound it to pieces. The stoiTn rose a little after sunset,
and a steamboat captain in Owen Sound was wired to, with
the request that he bring his boat down and endeavor to
tow the schooner out to deep water, where she could get
canvas on herself without danger of being driven ashore.
He put in an appearance in answer to the call, but the
night was such a wild one that in the pitch darkness pre-
vailing he thought it safest not to go near the dock at all,
—104—
DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
so the Maple Leaf was left to ride out the storm. She
did so, but the resultant damage to the dock was dis-
heartening- to look at, when the gale had subsided. Mr.
Ainslie promptly entered an action for damages against
her owners, employing counsel. He was awarded them in
the paltry sum of one hundred dollars. He then went to
pay his lawyer. That gentleman had evidently made up
his mind to charge all the traffic would bear. He informed
his client in an apologetic tone, as though ashamed of his
own modesty, that "he guessed his bill would be about
ninety-five dollars."
"Take it all while you're at it" said Mr. Ainslie,
throwing him the hundred across the table.
On another occasion, in the spring of 1880, the
schooner Restless, also loaded with wheat, was torn loose
from the dock in a gale of wind, and driven over on the
shore on the south side. She was lightered of almost
lier whole cargo, the farmers for miles around getting all
the seed wheat they wanted for little or nothing, and a
small tug tried to pull her off. The attempt was unsuccess-
ful, but later the Mary Ann, a heavier tug from CoUing-
wood, managed to float her.
Other sailing vessels calling at Leith, beside the two
luckless ones already mentioned, and falling within our
own recollection were : The Mountaineer, Lady MacDonald
and Lily Hamilton, all owned by the late James Sutherland
of Owen Sound ; the Phoebe Catherine, Prince Edward,
Annie Foster, Belle MacPhee and Ariel. Of these the Lily
Hamilton and Lady MacDonald, each having a capacity
of about twenty thousand bushels of wheat, and being of
the three-masted type, were the largest. It was generally
estimated that their construction cost one thousand dollars
for every thousand bushel of grain they would carry, in
—105—
REiVIINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
vessels of their design. The Lily Hamilton was lost on
Lake Ontario.
The first steamboat of which there is any record as
calling at Leith was the Kaloolah. She was calling there
regularly many years before the building of the first dock.
Other early steamboats were the Ploughboy, Canadian,
Clifton, Silver Spray, City of London, Algoma and Cumber-
land. Coming down to comparatively recent years, the list
includes the Frances Smith, City of Owen Sound, Magnet,
Spartan, Africa, Persia (occasionally) City of Winnipeg,
Josephine Kidd, Northern Belle, Northern Queen, Alderson.
Manitoulm and Emerald. The list is made from memory
only, and is probably incomplete. Many of these steam-
boats, particularly the early ones, had wood burning
furnaces and sometimes merely called to "wood up." The
one-day steainboat excursions, once so popular in Owen
Sound, but which have fallen into innocuous desuetude,
called regularly at Leith in the sixties, seventies and the
early eighties, after which the dock began to grow unsafe,
for larger vessels at least. Some of these excursions were
higlily enjoyable events, and it is to be hoped the custom
will yet be revived.
The wharf, as it was generally called, was thus not only
a great commercial convenience but a source of pleasure
to young and old, and many of the fondest recollections of
old Leithonians still centre round it. It is now as unsightly
a ruin as will be seen anywhere on Georgian Bay, and
about as ugly as the receding waters have left the shores
on both sides of it. The passing stranger, glancing at it
casually, would be surprised were he to learn of the volume
of trade that once found an outlet over its sides. How
many such melancholy wrecks are scattered along the two
shores between the head of the Great Lakes and the mouth
of the St. Lawrence ? There may be something impres-
—106—
DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
sively picturesque in the sight of the old baronial castles,
standing in the magnificence of their ruined masonry along
the banks of the Rhine, and doubtless something inspiring
in the ivy-covered walls of their counterparts, dating back
to the time of the Plantagenets and Tudors, still surviving
in various parts of the British Isles. The poet and painter,
at least, have told us so. But the sight of one of these
wooden ruins such as we have described, so common on
our North American continent, the original structures of
which have risen, flourished and gradually fallen into the
last stages of decay within the lifetime of a man not so
very old, is one that fills us with feelings of the most melan-
choly depression. The former is at lease sanctified by legend
and tale, and stirs the images of generations long gone. But
a wooden ruin furnishes no inspiration to either the painter
or poet. It has no historical importance because it concen-
trates its interest on one family or one man only, and may
be said to resemble a mangled coi^pse rather than the
monument that covers it. While not a positive danger to
anything, or anybody, the remains of the Leith dock
should be torn up and demolished entirely, as an offence
to the eye.
Even when times were good and trade at its briskest,
it proved in the long run to be a losing venture to its
builder. It would not pay interest on the original invest-
ment and the constant expense of keeping it in repair,
and the same might be said of Mr. Ainslie's other enter-
prises in the village. But it will always be said to his
honor that he was the gamest sort of a loser. He had
known the most generous prosperity, and he met adversity
with a cool imperturbability one could not help but admire.
All the world loves a good loser, and it is sure we cannot
afford keener gratification to our enemies than by show-
ing ourselves a hard one. The trend of the times was
against him. Business was concentrating more and more
—107—
8
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
in the large centres of population, and gradually draining
off the trade enjoyed by the smaller towns and villages.
Of course he had critics in abundance, as has every man of
business who is not afraid to back his hopes of gain with
his dollars. Men who had made the sorriest botclies of
their own affairs were not lacking who could tell him why
such-and-such a venture had failed, and what he should
have done to have succeeded. The world will never want
for men who can manage the affairs of their neighbors far
better than tliey can their own — if we are only fools
enough to listen to them.
When he came from Gait Mr. Ainslie might have in-
vested his considerable fortune in government securities,
where small rewards were certain, and lived a life of in-
glorious inactivity ever afterwards. But such was not
the bent of his nature. If want of success be a sin, at
least he sinned in excellent company. Take the neighbour-
ing city as an example, although it is certainly not unique
as an object lesson. In the last fifty years how many
business enterprises have been launched under the most
favorable auspices and promises of permanent success in
Owen Sound, only to fail by reason of circumstances which
could not be foreseen, any more than they could be controll-
ed ? How many of her shrewdest business men have lost,
and lost heavily, in these ventures? Were the lists ever pub-
lished they would be lengthy ones.
A few words anent the closing years in his long and
varied career will appropriately close this chapter. In
1888 he moved to Owen Sound with his son-in-law, Mr.
Henry Rixon. His interest in life is best evidenced by
the fact that after he had passed his eightieth year he
wrote his autobiography, which those who have been
fortunate enough to have read declai'e to be one of the
most interesting manuscripts they ever perused, covering
—108—
I
DEVELOPMENT AND DECAY
as it does his early life in Britain, and subsequent years
in Gibralter, Gait and Leith. It is to be hoped this auth-
biography will yet be published and given to the world at
large, where it would be received with wider approbation.
He died in his ninetieth year at Owen Sound, and is buried
in the cemeteiy he had, with chai'acteristic generosity,
presented to the Presbyterian congregation at Leith just
a third of a century previously. By a curious coincidence
his wife, who had been many years his junior, died twenty-
two years later to a day than her lamented husband,
having lived until within a week of being also in her
ninetieth year. The last sui'viving member of their family,
Captain John Ainslie, passed away in 1923.
—109—
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHURCHES
In such a thoroughly Scottish community as the Lake
Shore Line it was inevitable that, once fairly settled in
their new home, men's minds should turn instinctively to
the holding of religious services in the faith they had
brought with them from their native land, and a beginning
made in the foiTnation of a Presbyterian congregation. In
the spring of 1845 James Ross, Sr., held what we are now
fond of calling a consultation, with Thomas Lunn, and from
this informal conversation there sprang the Annan
congregation. They decided a religious sei-vice should be
held every Sunday. An-angements were accordingly made>
the place of meeting being the home of William Telfer,
brother of John Telfer, and the usual form of service of
the Presbyterian Church was used ; viz. Psalm, Scripture,
Prayer, Sermon, Psalm and Prayer. Participation in these
services was taken by Mr. Ross and Mr. Lunn, and a little
later by David Armstrong, who took part by announcing
the opening psalm and reading scripture. One of Chalmers*
sermons was used, at first read by Mr. Ross, and later by
William Wilson and others. From the first Hugh Reid led
the singing. He had a repertoire of three tunes, but others
were in time added as the result of attendance at a singing
school, conducted by Mr. Wilson at Hugh Reid's home.
These meetings were held continuously until a regular
ministerial supply was obtained.
In addition to those of Chalmers, the sermons of
Logan and McCheyne were sometimes used, and the
manuscript sermons of a Reverend Mr. MacFarland, then
deceased. These manuscripts were loaned through the
courtesy of a relative and namesake of Mr. MacFarland,
—110—
I
THE CHURCHES
who kept store on the Lake Shore Line about a mile north-
east of Annan. In the meantime, apphcation had been
made on May 15th, 1845, to the Free Church Presbytery
of Hamilton, by what the church records of the Presbyter-
ian Church called the "Owen Sound Settlements," for some
arrangements for the dispensation of the sacraments in
these localities, which included the Lake Shore Line. This
was followed on October 13th, 1847, by another application
from the Presbyterians of the Lake Shore for organization
as a congregation, but this application was, from reasons
ol established policy, denied.
When it was decided to organize a congregation, at
a meeting held prior to the presentation of this last
application, it was resolved that a vote should be taken as
to whether the new congregation should be the Established,
or Auld Kirk, or Free Kirk, with the understanding that
all would agree to accept the decision of the majority.
The point was of considerable importance at that time.
The controversy in the Old Land, from which so many of
them had recently come, by which the Established Kirk
of Scotland had been rent in twain was still fresh in men's
minds, and the whole subject was a delicate one with most
of them. They were men who held with the usual Scottish
tenacity to their opinions, more particularly in matters
of the church. Hardly as much so, however, as the Scot
who once, engaged in an argument, was told that his mind
was closed to conviction. He replied with considerable
heat ; "Na ! Na ! My mind's no closed to conviction, but I
would like to see the man who could convince me !" The
meeting seems to have been fairly harmonious, and when
the vote was taken it was found the Free Church advocates
were in a decided majority. All then assented witli the
exception of Doctor Lang, William Glen and George Corbet.
About seventeen years later these gentlemen took the
initiative in organizing the Leith congregation.
—Ill—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The first school house at Annan, a log building, was
built in the summer of 1847, on the southeast corner of the
lot where the present day school stands. The services,
which had hitherto been continuously conducted at
William Telfer's, were transferred to this building as soon
as it was finished, and the first sacrament ever observed
b>' the congregation was held there. On May 9th, 1849,
a congregation was at last organized on the Lake Shore
Line, and was united with that of Sydenham. The two
had a joint Session, but each had its own board of manage-
ment. On the 1st of June of that year the Reverend John
McKinnon was inducted as pastor of the two congregations,
the service consequent thereto being held at Sydenham.
The sacrement above referred to was dispensed by Mr.
McKinnon,
The Reverend John McKinnon was remembered as a
m.an of exceptionally high character, rather than for any
marked ability in exposition of the scriptures. One
incident in his ministry was long afterward remembered,
and is worth recounting. He was a great temperance en-
thusiast and had at all times the courage of his, at the
time, unpopular convictions. Hoping to organize a total
abstinence society at Annan, he called a meeting of the
congregation pursuant to that purpose. Long and earnestly
he expatiated upon what was evidently a favorite theme,
and w^as listened to in stony yet respectful silence. After
he had finished one or two of the more influential members
rose and in the plainest terms, without any circumlocution
whatsoever, informed the minister that his intention was
a distasteful one to all of them. He was further advised
to drop the subject at once, if he valued his peace of mind.
There was no mistaking the spirit of those present, not
one of whom w'ould consent to sign the pledge, and the
minister, wisely or unwisely just as the reader will view it,
abandoned the idea at once. Mr. McKinnon was only guilty
—112—
THE CHURCHES
of anticipating the march of progress, as we shall presently
see.
The arrangement between the two congregations was
continued for three years, and was dissolved with the con-
sent of all concerned. A misunderstanding had arisen in
the Lake Shore congregation over Mr. McKinnon's salary.
Several members whose zeal, or possibly thoughtlessness,
had outrun their discretion, subscribed to his stipend, and
when the hour for payment arrived failed, in popular
parlance, to come across. Mr. McKinnon thought the
deficiency thus incuiTed should be made good by members
who had pJready paid their subscriptions. They, on the
other hand, could not see it in that light. Ultimately he
severed his connection with the congregation, when it
parted company with Sydenham. This was a matter of
general regret, as he had been held in the highest personal
esteem. While at Annan he visited the members of his
flock regularly, and was accustomed to question the families
in the Shorter Catechism and expound Scripture at length.
The Annan people then abandoned the Free Church.
In July, 1852, they petitioned the Presbytery of Welling-
ton, of the United Presbyterian Church, to be received
into their connection and the petition was granted. The
same year the Scottish Lowlanders and Irish were organ-
ized into a United Presbyterian Church. They continued
holding services in the school house. Their ranks were
steadily growing. Shortly after Mr. McKinnon's departure
a sacrament was held in Gideon Harkness' bai'n, the
school house being deemed too small to accommodate the
worshippers. At this sacrament the Reverend M. Devine,
a mulatto who afterwai'ds settled at Meaford, officiated.
Another sacrament, held about a year later, was pai'taken
of in William Telfer's barn. We leave it with the reader
to imagine the feelings of an ultra-fashionable Presbyterian
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
congregation, in the year of grace 1924, were they asked
to observe sacrament in a bam. Another proof of the
growth of the congregation at this time, is the fact that at
one service eiglit infants were baptized.
A period of probationers now ensued. Among them
were the Reverends Sutherland, Barr, Dunbar, Dees,
Carruthers, and an Irishman whose name seems to be
forgotten. This last mentioned always began service with
the 121st Psalm, which he read in a broad Irish accent.
These probationers generally stayed at the home of James
Ross, Sr., and at each time while there this Irishman
asked a daughter in the home to cut his hair, which she
did on two occasions. Doubtless the accommodation was
highly appreciated, as barbers at the time were scarce —
almost as scarce as ready cash. There is an old tradition
that on more than one occasion adult members attended
the services barefooted.
One of the probationers, a young man with a stentorian
voice, would have been given a call but he had promised
to go elsewhere. In September, 1853, the congregation
called Dr. Torrance, of Guelph, who declined. The same
year the Division Street church of Owen Sound was
organized on a petition signed by thirteen persons, and
for purposes of supply it was connected with the Annan
congregation. This union was short lived, being dissolved
in January, 1855. Both congregations in the following
Marcii extended a call to tlie Reverend Mr. Glassford.
These calls were largely signed in both places, but both
were declined. The Annan people had now been three
years on a more or less uncertain supply, and the situation
had grown very unsatisfactory. Their numbers were
steadily on the increase. The whole length of the Lake
Shore, as well as many from the Irish Block, attended
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THE CHURCHES
service at the Annan School House, Michael Fettis, who
lived some distance below Johnstone, attended regularly.
At last, in August, 1855, the Reverend Robert Dewar
was extended a call, which was signed by fifty members
and thirteen adherents. The stipend offered was eighty
pounds per annum. The first four signers were David
Armstrong, Andrew Sibbald, William Telfer and Gideon
Harkness. James Ross, Sr., refused to sign. The call
was accepted and Mr. Dewar was ordained and inducted
in October, 1855. He had served as a probationer for one
year in Scotland before coming to Canada, and was the
first minister of Lake Shore Line, as a separate and self-
supporting unit of the Presbyterian Church. The occasion
was an auspicious one for the congregation, we may be
sure. The aforementioned Dr. Torrance and a Reverend
Mr. Fayette officiated at the service.
In 1854 a frame church was erected on the cemetery
lot, opened four years previously. This cemetery is
adjacent to the village, in the southwest direction. The
new church stood on the southwest corner of the lot.
Contracts were called for and five bids were submitted,
the building to be 45 x 35, without plastering, seating or
painting. The successful contractor was Oswald Hines, a
brother-in-law of Hugh Reid, who bid eighty-five pounds,
twelve shillings. One bid was for one hundred thirty-eight
pounds, ten shillings, and three others were within one
pound of that figure, so there had been a wide discrepancy
in calculation. While in course of erection, one day, the
cai*penters being at dinner, the roof was blown off when
partly shingled. The framework collapsed in the same
wind, and it was not rebuilt until a year later. On the
first day of raising, in 1854, Mr. Hinds failed to put in an
appearance and the assembly, in preference to returning
home, drilled themselves into putting together the frame.
"For the people had a mind to work."
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The following list of members is of the year 1855, and
taken from the communion rolls of that period, to wit :
Daniel Lamont, Andrew Sibbald, Mrs. Elliot, George Reid,
James Ross, Sr., William Thomson, David Armstrong,
Robert AiTnstrong, John White, William Brown, George
Nesbit, Martin Cathrae, William Lamb, William P. Telford,
Sr., Ellen Harkness, Mrs. Thomas Maynard, Andrew Biggar,
Walter Hope, Gideon Harkness, Hugh Reid, John Couper,
John Turnbull, William Riddell, Roger Lamont, Michael
Fettis, Walter Aitken, Duncan Campbell, William Osborne,
Charles AiTnstrong, Walter Beattie, James Armstrong,
John Skeeling, William J. MacLean, Thomas Harkness, Sr.,
John Brown, John Wyllie, John Harkness. All the males
in this list were married men, and the names of their wives
appear with them. The following names of widowers and
unmarried men also appear on the rolls : Robert Easton,
John Hutson, Robert White and Andrew Beattie. All the
members of this congregation have since passed away.
The new church had an interior feature common to
all Scottish churches, a precentor's box in front of the
pulpit. The names of the various precentors have not been
preserved but James Ross, Jr., and John Couper were
among them. The Leith Presbyterian Church, built ten
years later, also had a precentor's box. James Ross, Jr.,
became a regular attendant there as soon as it was finished,
and. officiated as precentor for twenty-three years, or until
1888. Until that date, hymns were rarely or never used in
the Sunday services of either congregation.
The following gentlemen had served on the building
committee of the Presbyterian Church at Annan : Gideon
Harkness, W. Wyllie, Andrew Sibbald, John Couper, Hugh
Reid, Andrew Biggar and James Ross, Sr. In 1856 the
building of a manse was decided on and the building com-
mittee in this case consisted of Messrs. R. Armstrong, John
Couper, Hugh Reid, Gideon Harkness, W. P. Telford, George
—116—
THE CHURCHES
Nesbit and David Armstrong. The manse, a frame build-
ing standing opposite the brick church erected in 1882,
was built at a cost of one hundred and sixty-five pounds,
fifteen shillings. It appears little the worse after sixty-
eight years of wear and tear.
In November, 1855, the Session then consisting of Rev.
Mr. Dewar, James Ross and David AiTnstrong, two more
elders were added, in tlie persons of William BrowTi and
John Couper. They were ordained in February of 1856. In
October, 1857, Walter Hope, William Thomson, Gideon
Harkness and Michael Fettis were added to the Session and
ordained as elders. ]\Ir. Devvar was given a vacation in this
year, to attend the S3'nod and rest up for future exertions.
The congregation was at this time carrying a debt of $890.,
which seems moderate in view of their expenditure in
building. A plan of payment was agreed upon by the
members, and some improvements were effected at the
manse. Early in 1858 an exchange of pulpits between Mr.
Grant, of Chalmers' Church, Owen Sound, and Mr. Dewar
was agreed upon. Chalmers' Church was of the Free Kirk
persuasion and the Annan Church, United Presbyterian.
It was expected this exchange of pulpits would promote
the sentiment of union between these two bodies of Pres-
byterians in Canada. About two years later this Union
became an accomplished fact.
The Annan congregation has always been most liberal
in its support of the various schemes of the pai'ent body,
and in assisting less fortunate congregations. As early as
1856, it was agreed that an annual collection be taken up
for foreign missions. In that day when money was so
scarce, it is gratifying to know that they managed to find
some to spend upon others than themselves. I^ter, in 1877,
they sent a liberal donation to Wiarton, to help the Pres-
byterians there in the building of a church. They obsei*ved
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
their first Thanksgiving Day on a Sunday set apart by
themselves, in November, 1859.
It was in January of 1877 the movement began for
the union of the Leith and Annan congregations. In this
year Mr. Dewar, who was then in the twenty-second year of
his ministry, retired with an allowance of two hundred
dollars per annum and the life's use of the manse he then
occupied.
When Mr. Dewar accepted the call from Annan in 1855
his wife was still in Scotland. She came to Canada to
rejoin her husband in 1856, with her infant son James ;
in the interim he boarded with members of his congregation
in Leith. ]Mrs. Dewar arrived at Leith by one of the early
steamboats and was standing on the deck with the Captain,
her infant in her arms, when the huge batteau then used
to bring passengers ashore was pulled up alongside the
steamer by two of the villagers. She was naturally in-
terested in the occupants of the batteau, and, looking down
at them, voiced her relief to the captain, saying that as she
had come to live among these people she was glad to see
they did not look like savages. Such incidents bring
home to one the realization that the world was a large place
in that day and time, and Scotland a long way from
Canada. Some gross misconceptions of Canada still
persisted in the Old Land, and they died hard.
Mr. Dewar was a man of extensive learning and very
considerable parts. He took many pupils during his regime
at Annan whose early education had been limited owing to
pressure of work or lack of means, and was active in edu-
cational affairs in Owen Sound and the Lake Shore Line.
His own advantages in that respect had been of the best,
and he was particularly proficient in the higher mathe-
matics. His sermons were undeviatingly of the expository
order ; he had only a sort of amused tolerance for the
topical variety of discourse. In this, it may be ventured,
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THE CHURCHES
he sometimes preached a trifle over the heads of the
congregation, but everywhere and at all times he preached
sound and orthodox Presbyterian doctorine. His judgement
in seculai' matters was good, and in the pulpit he presented
a scholarly and dignified appearance. He sometimes had
a critical audience, his discourses each Sunday frequently
being subjects for reflection and discussion among the
members of his flock until the following Lord's Day.
Religion and affairs of the church occupied a large part in
the daily life of the pioneer Presbyterians. Family worship
was obsei"\'ed every day in almost every home at Leith
and Annan, and the sanctity of the Sabbath was more
highly regai'ded then than now. Both of these duties were
constantly inculcated by Mr. Dewar. When the union
between the congregations at Annan and Leith was con-
summated he was rapidly losing his eyesight. Latterly
he become totally blind. He died at Annan in 1893, and is
buried in the cemetery there, his wife having predeceased
liim by about twenty-three years.
The large brick church now in use at Annan was built
in 1882, its building having been decided on at a meeting
held in January of that year. One of the most liberal
subscribers to the building fund was the Reverend John
Mordy, then pastor of the combined Leith and Annan
churches. He resigned in midsummer of that year to
accept a call to Walkerton, while the church was about
half completed, but faithfully carried out his financial obliga-
tion. A few years later the old church was razed, and the
space it covered in the cemetery was used for burial plots.
This cemetery was opened in 1850, and seems to have
been the first ground regularly devoted to such a service
in Sydenham. The price of the burial plots was fixed at
one dollar and the names of the first takers follow :
Duncan Campbell, Walter Campbell, Neil Morrison,
John Robinson, Thomas Rutherford, Doctor Scott, George
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Reid, John Sutherland, David Wilson, Thomas Armstrong,
William Telfer, Duncan Morrison, Duncan M. Calhoun,
Robert Lamont, William Thomson, George Day, John Day,
Archie MacArthur, Dougald MacArthur and John WTiitchill.
The subsoil is stony and a more unfavorable spot for
the grave digger could hardly have been chosen. William
Telfer, a brother of John Telfer, acted in that capacity for
many years. In recent years a large extension, owing to
the accessions of the silent majority, has been made to it,
and a gratifying spirit shown in improving and beautifying
the surroundings. As the last sanctuary of so many brave
hearted pioneers it is worthy of all such honors. There
is an old tradition that the first burials were made difficult
by the graves flooding with water. The first funeral to
the new cemetery was of one of the Armstrong family, at
that time one of the best known in Sydenham. (This
statement may possibly be subject to correction.)
Until 1859 the people of Leith and Concession A all
went regularly to the services at Annan. In that year,
however, a frame school house was built at Leith, and
religious services began to be held in it. There was no
regularly organized congregation and no regular minister-
ial supply, but on some occasions Mr. Thom, an itinerant
Presbyterian preacher, held occasional meetings. On
others, the Reverend George MacGrafftey, the incumbent
of the Baptist pastorate at Owen Sound, was heard. The
latter gentleman was a prime favorite with the old and
young of both denominations at Leith, and was always
assured of a crowed house at the services he held.
In the spring of 1864 Alexander Hunter came to Leith.
He was then a student probationer for the Presbyterian
Church in Canada in connection with the Church of
Scotland, and in the following July active steps were taken
—120—
THE CHURCHES
in the org-anization of such a congregation. Doctor William
Lang and Messrs George Corbet, William Glen and Adam
Ainslie were among the leaders in this movement. The
first congregational meeting was held in the school house,
on July 20th. On motion IM. MacDowell and William Lang
were elected chairman and secretary pro tem respectively.
It was then moved by Thomas Brown and seconded by
Donald Cameron that the congregation do extend a call to
the Reverend Alexander Hunter, B. A., to become their
pastor and guide, which motion carried. The secretary
pro tem was instructed to cooperate with William John-
stone of the Johnstone congregation in requesting the
Presbytery to moderate in the call, and also to notify Mr.
Hunter with the proceedings of the meeting. James Clark
was elected a manager of the congregation, and the meeting
adjourned.
At a second meeting of the congregation, held on
Januaiy 5th, 1865, Mr. Hunter having been ordained on
October 27th, 1864, it was moved by John Harkness and
seconded by Donald Cameron that James Ross, Jr., be
chairman of the congregation for the cuiTent yeai', and
the following members were, also upon motion, duly elected
as managers of the church for 1865 : Thomas Rutherford,
Dugald Spence, James Clark, John Crawford, James Gibson,
Sr., Allan Ross, Donald Cameron and John Harkness.
James Ross was also elected secretary treasurer, and was
instructed to puchase the necessary books. Allan Ross,
James Gibson, Sr., and John Harkness, all mechanics in the
building trades by the way, w^ere appointed a committee
to investigate and report upon the estimated amount of
money required to build a church, and the meeting
adjourned.
The new minister being an enthusiast upon the project
of a new church, and giving church members no rest until
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
the enterprise was undertaken, a second meeting was held
in January, same year, to devise plans to that end.
John Harkness was at this meeting authorized to enter
into any agreement suitable to himself with A. M. Stephens
in regard to the quality of the bricks. James Ross, Jr.,
the secretary treasurer, was ordered to pay Mr. Harkness
ninety dollars to enable that gentleman to make the first
payment to A. M. Stephens on thirty thousand bricks at
four dollars and fifty cents a thousand. Thomas Ruther-
ford was instructed to purchase 1000 feet of lumber to
protect the bricks, and the meeting adjourned.
The church was accordingly erected in the summer
of 1865, and has ever since served the Leith congregation
through its changing fortunes. It is a brick building of
a very considerable size for that time, plain but substantial,
its most remarkable feature being the immense width of
the dressed pine used in making the seats. What would
the country's lumber dealers not give to have such pine
now ! Mr. Hunter was at this time in the meridian of his
physical powers, and his activity that summer must have
been tremendous. All of the work that could be done by
members of the congregation was performed by them, with
the minister constantly in the forefront of operations. He
had, in addition to his labors at Leith, the congregation at
Johnstone to minister to, the two having been united with
the coming of Mr. Hunter to Leith in 1864. The fiftieth
anniversary service of the Leith Church was observed in
August, 1916, the minister officiating being the Reverend
John Ross, of Boston, Mass., since deceased. Mr. Ross was
the son of the first secretary-treasurer of the Leith
congregation.
The minute book of the congregation, purchased in
1864, and which is still doing active duty, has been
religiously followed in the foregoing, but there is no
—122—
I'LATH II.
1. James S. Ross. 2. Dr. William Lang. ?,. William IJrowii
4. Robert Elliot. 5. David Armstrong. 6. Gideon Harkness
THE CHURCHES
further repoit, for some reason, of the annual meetings
until that of 1871. There is a full record of the minutes
of a special meeting- held January 15th, 1866, however, at
which plans were made for a monster soiree, or "swarry"
as Sam Weller would call it, to mark the opening of the new
church. The following persons were named, on motion, as
a committee of management for this "swarry" : William
Keefer, George Jolley, Henry Lang, William Gibson, Robert
Crawford, James Reid, James ]\IacDowell, William Veitch,
iNlalcolm MacNeil, Hugh C. Ross, Matthew Alexander,
Alex. Ainslie and Henry Rixon. The managers of the
Church were added to this committee, and Mr. Hunter
was on motion requested to wait on Adam Ainslie, Esq.,
to ascertain if he would consent to act as chaimian, a
request that was kindly acceded to. The Reverend Robert
Dewar of Annan was extended a special invitation to be
present, the most polite punctilio always being obsei'ved
between congregations of the time in such matters. There
is no written record of the celebration itself, but from
stories told of it that have become traditional, the event
must have been one that was long remembered.
The opening of the Church and four years that
followed it marked the halcyon days of the Leith
congregation. The personal magnetism of ^Ir. Hunter,
combined with certain other circumstances, were factors
that made the attendance at services larger than at any
subsequent time in the congregation's history. From the
home of Doctor Lang, near Manders Corners, down to
t'lat of James Gibson, Sr., on Concession A, a distance of
nearly ten miles, every family with only one or two
exceptions attended. Many families on the Lake Shore
Line also made it their place of worship. The church was
filled to over-flowing every Sunday, summer and winter.
The village had about this time reached its peak in both
prosperity and population, and many of their Baptist
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RELJINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
brethern joined the Presbyterians in divine service there
every Sunday. Tlie Johnstone congregation also seems
to have flourished at the time. The minister of course
had troubles all his own. There were backsliders in such a
large flock, some of whom must have weighed upon his
spirits, but never once did a word of annoyance pass his
lips in speaking about them to others of his congregation.
To his zeal and earnestness, to his indefatigable and
energetic industry, there was added a patience and for-
bearance not always to be found with the first named
qualities, and at which men mai"velled for long after he
had gone.
Alexander Hunter was born in Glasgow, on June 16th,
1828, and shortly after his birth his parents moved to the
neighborhood of the village of Lanark, where he received
the elements of his education. He had the Scottish
■characteristic of a thirst for knowledge and in spite of
the difliculties of his situation — a life of labor in which he
had to rise early and sit late — he cultivated his naturally
strong powers of obsei'vation and mastered an extraordinary
amount of general information, which in later years sei"ved
him in good stead. When admitted as a member to the
Presbyterian Church of Montrose Street, Glasgow, the
Reverend Mr. McGill, who then presided over it, said that
in all his experience as a minister he had never examined
one wlio had attained to such a degree in secular and
christian knowledge.
He Vv-as the third in a family of ten sons and two
daughters and with the family immigrated to Canada in
1842, settling on a farm in Wellington County. They faced
the hai'dships and privations shared by all settlers in a
new land, but after years of hard labor they raised them-
selves to a position of independence and influence in the
jieighborhood. The death of his father, a Vv'ortliy and
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THE CHURCHES
God-fearing- man, took place in 1846, and it was shortly
after this he conceived the idea of entering- the Christian
ministry, being urged to such a decision by the Reverend
Duncan Morrison, of Knox Church, Owen Sound. That
decision once taken, there was no turning back. He
prosecuted his theological studies with an enthusiasm that
carried him tiirough every difficult?, won honors in every
year of his college course and, in the final examinations in
Theological Hall, won the highest distinction in the gift
of the Senate of that institution, the degree of Bachelor
of Divinity. Out of a maximum number of five hundred
marks, Mr. Hunter stood highest in taking four hundred
and twenty-five, or nearly seven-eights. His nearest
competitor was Mr. Smith, afterwards Presbyterian
minister at Belleville, who had four hundred and twenty-
three. Upon some technicality, however, which has never
been clearly explained, the Senate refused to grant the
degree he had so noblj' and honestly won. This was a keen
disappointment to him, although few ever guessed it from
the composure with which he referred to the incident. Had
he lived Mr. Hunter would undoubtedly have risen to the
highest honors that can be bestowed by that great branch
of the Protestant Church in Canada, whose tenets and
doctrines he so ably championed before the people. jMen
do not come to such honors as Mr. Hunter won in his studies
by mere chance. Regardless of their natural ability it takes
unflagging industry and brain-sweat to accomplisli such
results.
His coming to Leith as a student and his ordaination
to the ministry have already been referred to. During his
pastorate the Johnstone Church was built, largely by reason
of the agitation he carried on with that end in view. This
church was torn dov/n a few years ago and replsx^ed wich
a thoroughly modern brick one, and since its building the
_12.5—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Johnstone congregation has taken a new lease of enthusiasm
In fact, Mr. Hunter's labors in Leith and Johnstone were
singularly blessed, and the evidence of such a bountiful
harvest in that portion of the vineyard entrusted to his
care must often have rejoiced his heart.
Late in September, 1869, Mr. Hunter was stricken with
disease, which made its first appearance on a Sunday, when
lie had great difficulty in finishing the services. The fever
from which he sufi'ered soon ran its fatal course. On
October 11th he came to the end of all things earthly ; his
passing was marked by a calm resignation and the highest
Christian fortitude. A high minded gentleman, a splendid
citizen, a devoted husband and father, "good without effort,
great without a foe," went to his eternal reward. He died
in his forty-second year and in the fifth year of his ministry,
survived by his widow and two young sons.
Three days later the last obsequies took place. The
Reverend Duncan Morrison, with whom Mr. Hunter had
been closely associated for many years, was asked to preach
the funeral sermon and consented. He chose for his text
2nd Timothy, 4th chapter, 6th, 7th and 8th verses : "1
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
kept tlie faith ; Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness," etc., and expatiated in a very striking
manner on the shining example of the deceased. Mr.
Hunter had ministered to a people \yho had a characteristic
Scottish horror of a scene and took a sort of sullen pride in
concealing their feelings, but as the service proceeded it
became evident their emotions were profoundly stirred.
To every one of them came the sense of personal loss — the
loss of a tried friend and trusted counsellor who had been
a very present help in time of trouble.
The day was quiet and peaceful as is the wont of our
weather in mid-October. At the conclusion of the sei*vice
the remains of the congregation's first minister were, within
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THE CHURCHES
a few yards of the church where he had labored so
faithfully and with such sig'nal success, laid away in the
last resting- place which awaits us all, "in sure and
certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life."
In 1871 a movement was started by the congregation
to erect a suitable monument to his memory, and a sub-
scription list for this laudable purpose was circulated there
and in the Johnstone congregation as well. The result was
that in due time a marble shaft, about twelve feet high, was
raised on the burial plot, the cost of which was about three
hundred dollars. On the square marble block suiTnounting
the base are four tablets, one of which bears the name of
the deceased, with his theological degrees and the facts
relative to his life, ministry and death. The one directly
opposite bears the following inscription :
Mr. Hunter was a man greatly beloved, fervent
in spirit, serving the Lord, and long to be re-
membered by his people, among whom he labored
with an affection that never wearied and that
shone brightest at the close.
The authorship of this deserved tribute to his memory has,
whether correctly or not, also been attributed to the
Reverend Duncan Morrison. Regardless of this however,
it reflects accurately the sentiments cherished by his people
toward one whose memory still flourishes green among
their children, a memory constantly reminding us that
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
If ever a man adorned the high calling wherewith he
was called, that man was the Reverend Alexander Hunter.
Such a death is surely a triumph, when one leaves behind
him a remembrance that is blessed of all men. As one
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
of tiie beacon lights in England's literature said of her
greatest naval hero ; "Thus it is that the spirits of the
great and just continue to live and to act after them."
The site of the Church, and the commodious and
beautiful ground for the cem.etry which immediately
surrounds it, had been very generously presented to the
congregation in 1864 by Mr. Adam Ainslie. The subsoil
is sandy but admirably adapted to the growth of evergreens
and other ornamental trees. The price of burial plots was
first fixed at $2.00, the names of the first nineteen pur-
chasers being as follows : Matthew Alexander, Arthur
Cameron, Richard Alexander, David Butchart, Mrs. William
Glen, James Gibson, Mr. Fawcett, David MacDowell, John
Crawford, Allan Graham, Henrj^ Lang, John Mathieson,
William Jolley, Mrs. Jolley, James S. Wilson, Daniel
Cameron, Peter Burr and Charles Lemon. The first inter-
ment was that of a Miss Marshall, of one of the earliest and
most favorably known families among the settlers in the
village.
One of the senses in which Mr. Hunter's demise had
been a genuine calamity to the congregation was soon in
in evidence. A congregational meeting was held, in 1870,
to consider the question of a call to his successor. The
matter soon resolved itself into a choice between two
candidates, Messrs. MacDonald and Rogers. The line of
difference in opinion was shaiply drawn. Mr. MacDonald
was an eloquent preacher and had many estimable personal
qualities as well, marred, however, by one failing. To put
it bluntly, he was too fond of booze. The Rogers divi.^ion,
enthusiastic and determined, were in a decided majority;
Mr. MacDonald's admirers, fewer in numbers but just as
enthusiastic and determined as their opponents, followed the
able leadership of William Lang. These latter were dis-
posed to view Mr. MacDonald's ancient Scottish failing
—128—
THE CHURCHES
with a lenient eye. At last, after long discussion, JMr. Lang
proposed a compromise-"It is clear," he said, "we shall never
be agreed. Let us discard both of these gentlemen, continue
to hear probationers, and by and by we will find some other
one upon whom we are all agreed." But the majority,
standing upon its rights as a majority, was fimi. i\Ir.
Rogers was given a call, and one of the consequences of
that call was that the Leith congregation lost about a third
of its membership. The families Lang and Spence on
Concession A. and Lamont, Mathieson and MacKay on the
Lake Shore Line, to mention a few among many, either
dropped their membership, quit regular attendance, or
attended only occasionally.
The congregation still remained a large one, however.
The Reverend Edward B. Rogers was inducted, and it was
everywhere admitted the Leith and Johnstone congregations
had the best pulpit orator in the Owen Sound Presbytery.
He was a model of diligence and burned the midnight oil,
memorizing all his sermons until he was letter peifect.
His housekeeper used to heai' him tramping tlie floor of
his study until after midnight, declaiming and occasionally
stopping to coi'rect himself. He was a tea drinking
bachelor, and it says little for the fair enslavers of Leith
they allowed him to remain one until after his departure.
But he paid little attention to visiting as a pastoral duty
and his congregation never warmed to him as they had
to Mr. Hunter. In 1876 he received a call from the Kilsyth
congregation. After his departure the question of severing
the connection with Johnstone and uniting with Annan
became a live issue. After several protracted sessions, at
which the Reverend John Somerville acted as IModerator,
the articles of the Basis of Union with Annan were accepted
by both congregations and they were united under one
minister early in 1877. They have so continued ever since.
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
We have ah'eady passed the period covered by the
scope of this narrative, but the successive ministers after
the union with Annan may be briefly touched upon. The
Reverend Robert Dewar retired from the Lake Shore Line
Church and the Reverend Mr. Forest was the first joint
minister of the two congregations. His health broke down
after he had been in charge about nine months. The
Reverend John Mordy was given a call in 1878 and
ministered until July. 1882. In 1883, after the new brick
church had been built at Annan and a number of pro-
bationers had been heard, Dr. James B. Frazer, fomierly
a missionary in Formosa, was called, and inducted early in
the following year. His long and eminently successful
regime extended over a period upwards of thirty years
and he still flourishes in a vigorous old age in Owen Sound,
with the heartiest wishes for his welfare of his old con-
gregations at Leith and Annan. These good people next
tried a young man, a Mr. Jones, who after preaching a few
years with great acceptance, resigned in the spring of 1919
to go to Priceville. He was succeeded by the Reverend
Arthur Orr, the present incumbent, and it is now time to
take leave of the Presbyterian congregation at Leith. It
is now sadly shrunken in numbers, owing to circumstances
which they or anybody else cannot control. We live under
an industrial system that sucks the life out of the rural
districts and bestows it upon the cities. Perhaps it is
for the best, but one who remembers the palmy days of
these same rural commumities finds it hard to accept the
change.
Our attention will now be turned to the Baptist
congregations of Leith and Daywood, congregations which,
sometimes under the most trying circumstances, have
shown the most wonderful vitality. In 1869 "a spirit
heightened above the ordinary spirit of man" pervaded the
lower end of the Lake Shore Line. A season of great
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THE CHURCHES
spiritual revival seemed suddenly to spread over the whole
r.eighborhood, in the unaccountable manner in which such
seasons sometimes come. There were a few earnest souls
who were not slow to take advantag"e of it. A Baptist
student then laboring at Cape Rich came up to Daywood
several times and preached, his efforts being ably seconded
by Hiram Vanwyck and George Cameron. His name was
Robert Ross ; he was familiar with two languages, speaking
the Highland Scottish Gaelic fluently, a fact by which he
at once won his way into the hearts of the Highlanders of
the Lake Shore. He spoke in the two languages alternately
at service, and his labors were signally blessed, but un-
fortunately he had to return to Woodstock to finish his
studies. A young man named Putman was then sent into
the field by the Home Missions Board. He carried on the
meetings with great success, having the occasional and
highly valuable help of a gentleman familiarly known as
Father MacIntjTe, of Stayner, also the Reverend James
Coots, of Wiarton, and the Reverend Donald MacNeil of
Paisley. As a result of the united efforts of these Christain
gentlemen, the Daywood congregation was organized with
a membership of thiii;y-one, fifteen of whom were received
by experience, and sixteen upon profession of conversion.
All were baptized on Sunday, June 20th, 1869, with the
exception of two members, William Maclntyre and James
Wilson, who had been baptized the previous March at Leith.
On the following Sunday, January 27th, eight more w^ere
received and baptized upon the profession of their faith
and on July 4th, a week later, ten were added to the growing
congregation, following their Lord in baptism. Later in
the same year two more were added to the church, one
by baptism and the other by experience, and a remarkably
successful year was closed.
Naturally such a growing body was confronted by the
need of a place of worship. The project was led by
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re:\iiniscences of north Sydenham
Deacon George Cameron, who was tireless in his labors of
collecting monej' for a new building', selecting the material
and overseeing matters generally, altho others must be
given their due share of credit. The new church went up
in 1870, and stands on the northwest side of the Lake Shoie
Line a few miles below Annan, being opened the same year.
It is a plain yet substantial frame building, and' is still
doing active service.
In the meantime the Reverend Robert Ross, having
finished his studies and obtained his degree, returned to
the Dayv/ood field and filled the pulpit with great acceptance
until 1873, four members being added to the congregation
under his pastorate in 1871, and three in the two years
following. ]\Ir, Ross resigned in 1873 and the Reverend
William MacDiarmid succeeded him. He was a general
favorite and his resignation in the spring of 1874 was a
matter for the same kind of regret. He was followed by
Mr. Bosworth, a student, who has since gained eminence
as the secretary of the Baptist Mission Board at Grand
Ligne, Quebec. Mr. Gower, another student, followed in
1875 and that summer there were ten accessions to the
congregation. The Reverend William Reese came about
New Year of 1876 and remained until the following year,
when the Reverend George Day became pastor, also re-
maining a year. The Reverend A. Austin was then furn-
ished as supply until the spring of 1880 when a student,
Mr. Corkery, came for about six months, during which
seven more were added to the churcli on profession of
faith. Another student, J. H. Doolittle, followed Mr.
Corkery, and he in turn was followed by Robert Gai'side,
also a student. Mr. Garside was a man of pure character
and the highest Christian ideals, and he left the imprint
of them not only on his congregation but on the whole
community. In later years he returned to the scenes of
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THE CHURCHES
his former labors, once as a lecturer, and was always
warmly greeted by former friends of both denominations.
During his stay two more were added to the church. Then
followed a period when the members seem to have been
left pretty much to their own resources. All the members
took part in the services, either in prayer or in the giving-
of testimony, their leader being Deacon George Cameron.
In 1884 they obtained the services of William Barker, a
student who, under divine guidance, was largely instru-
mental in organizing a new Baptist congregation at Morley.
He resigned in 1885 and went to Meaford, and the Rev.
Mr. Vansickle followed him. It was his pleasure in the
summer of 1886 to welcome nine new members into his
flock. Mr. Vansickle is remembered by many for his
splendid voice, which he used with great effect in
evangelical v/ork in duets with his life's partner, also a
remarkably fine singer. About this time an adjustment
of the congregations in Daywood, Woodford, Morley,
Bayview, Cape Rich and Leith was found to be necessary.
Daywood, Woodford and Leith were placed under the one
charge, to which the Rieverend Alexander Gay was called
as pastor, Mr. Vansickle going to i\Iorley. i\Ir. Gay
was pastor at Daywood until late in 1888.
Since the last named date the following gentlemen, in
the order indicated, have filled the pastorate in the con-
gregations of which Daywood is the centre, namely ;
Cunnings, Sheldon, Nimmo, McQuaiTie, Haines, Allen,
Desson, Catchpole, Currie, Langton, Proudfoot, Schofield
and the present pastor, the Reverend Younger. These
churches have always been partially dependent for supply
upon the Home I\Iissions Board, and changes were on that
account frequent. From his patronymic it will be guessed
that Mr. Currie was a Scotsman. He was, and a worthy
one too. Mr. Proudfoot also hailed from the land of the
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
mountain and the flood. He was one of the young men of
the ministry who answered the call to aiTns in the Great
War. The Reverend iNIr. Desson was a favorite with his
legion of friends — not a man of brilliant parts or sui*passing
eloquence, but universally liked for his unassuming,
companionable ways and irreproachable character.
In 1913 the Leith congregation, by a spirit of self
sacrifice seldom found in congregations in the large cities,
were able to erect a comfortable brick church on the
corner of Princes Street and the Leith Walk. The build-
ing is not a large one but is amply so for the congregation's
needs. Their stedfast zeal in upholding the faith as it was
delivered unto them by their fathers reminds one instinc-
tively of the Auld Licht congregations in Thrums, whom
J. M. Barrie has immortalized in his "Auld Licht Idyll's."
The real origin of the Baptist congregation at Day-
wood, however, is found in the person of Mr. Peter Day, who
was born in the Baptist faith in New Bruinswick and came
to the Lake Shore Line in 1845, settling on Lot 26, Con-
cession B. He was the earliest progenitor of the family
bearing the name, whose ramifications and alliances have
since extended so widely, and as he lived until his ninetieth
year Grandpa Day, as was the cognomen everywhere be-
stow'ed upon him, became one of the best known characters
in the township. One of his gifts was an extraordinarily
powerful voice. A story is told of him going to a raising
shortly after he came into the neighborhood, and before
this peculiarity of his was generally known. At these
barn raisings a man was always set apart to give the word
to heave when a bent was raised, and at this raising
Grandpa Day was detailed for the duty. When all was
ready he mounted a stick of timber back from the raising-
gang a few feet, raised his arm and with the full force of
his lungs let forth a roaring "Yo heave" that made the
_134_
THE CHURCHES
best efforts of the bulls of Bashan sound like a pig's
whisper. The men on the pike poles were so startled by
tliis unlooked for explosion that the bent went up in record
time.
Pie was followed to the Lake Shore Line a few years
later by Mr. Stephen Cameron, who also came from the
iMaritime Provinces. Mr. Cameron, beside being- a famous
axeman, was a disciple of St. Crispin as well and made
shoes for the Lake Shore Line generally in the days when
factory shoes were yet unknown. When the Baptist
congregation at Daywood was organized a large proportion
of the charter members bore the name of Day, and the
Camerons were not far behind.
The relations between the two denominations repre-
sented at Leith, Annan and Daywood have, generally
speaking, been always of the most amicable character.
This is certainly as it should be, and hoping they will so
continue we will take leave of them both. No attempt will
be made to sketch the history of these churches in the last
twenty-five years. The events in connection there-
with are still familiar to the minds of all who will
be interested in such a narrative as the present one, and
will in time doubtless be taken care of by someone whose
ability as a chronicler is much greater than our own. The
aim kept constantly in view has been the giving of all the
facts in connection with the very beginnings of things,
that resulted in the organizations of these various congre-
gations. Even in that it has been far from as successful
as one would wish.
—135-
CHAPTER VIII,
THE SCHOOLS
The first school in North Sydenham, of which there
is positive mention, was a private one conducted by Mr.
Hem-y Baker at his home on Concession B, Lot 35, for
one summer. It has been impossible to place the exact
year, but it was in 1845 or 1846, probably in 1846.
If the reader objects to equivocal statements such as
"as nearly as can be ascertained" or "as far us is known,"
he will find parts of this narrative very unsatisfactory
reading, and this is one of them. But such phrases, which
are well considered as being in bad taste by the best writ-
ers, are excusable in this case if they are excusable at
all. It should be remembered that there are now no living
witnesses of the events prior to 1848 in Sydenham, either
there or elsewhere. If there are any documents bearing
on these events it has been impossible to find them. All
one can do is to trust such written recollections as the
pioneers, long years after the events happened, jotted
down, and have left behind them.
Mr. Baker was an easy going man, and as a discipli-
narian ranked considerably below par. His methods were
informal in the extreme. A true story survives about a
little girl who, while a session was in progress, walked up
and turning her back to him said, "Claw my back — it's
itchy."
However, as has been previously noted, a log school
house was erected at Annan in the summer of 1847, and
it served as church and school until 1853, when the first
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THE SCHOOLS
church was built. It was also the community centre of
the period, although the builders would never have dream-
ed of calling it by such a latter day title. There is no
record of how it was built, what was its cost, or any such
details. Probably some of the surrounding settlers ga-
thered and ran it up in a day or two. This building and
its immediate successor, a more pretentious frame one,
have long since disappeared in the ceaseless changes of
Time. But the first log building became famous in its day
as the only school nearer than those of Owen Sound for
children of school age to be sent to within a radius that
included Leith, the Irish Block and a remote point on the
north-east end of the Lake Shore Line. The school district,
shortly after this date, became known as School Section
Number 3, Lake Shore line of Sydenham.
The same year, Messrs. David Armstrong and Andrew
Bigger communicated with William Telford, a gentleman
who was at that time teaching school in Dumfries town-
ship, Waterloo count3^ with a view to engaging him in
the same capacity in the new school. Mr. Telford, who
had taught school in Roxburgshire previous to his coming
to Canada, accepted their proposals, and with his family
came to the Lake Shore Line late in the fall of 1848. He
brought with him a stove to be used in the Annan school,
charging the section ten shillings for the service.
There is an old saying to the effect that a note
made on the spot and at the time is worth a thousand
recollections. Mr. Telford was a careful and methodical
man who kept a minute record of all his transactions,
accounts, etc., in connection with his duties as school
teacher in School Section Number 3, from the date on
which the school opened until his retirement in August,
1856. ov/ing to ill health. Many of these ledgers and ac-
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
count books have been kindly loaned us, and the task of
the recorder becomes accordingly easy and definite. These
books are also valuable as showing accurately the prices
of various commodities at the time, of which notice will
be taken later on.
On the morning of March 5th, 1849, then, the school
opened without any ceremonies and with the following
pupils in attendance, or who subsequently commenced at-
tendance in the same year: James Wilson, William Arm-
strong, John AiTTistrong, William Nesbit, Betsey Nesbit,
Isabella Nesbit, Mary Telfer, William Telford, James Tel-
ford, Isabella Telford (these last three being of the tea-
cher's own family) Mary Telfer, Christina Reid, Thomas
J. Wilson, Hannah Keefer, Francis Keefer, Agnes Lamb,
Gideon Telfer, James S. Wilson, Bridget Wilson, Isabella
Piiddell, Isabella Easton, John Ross, Hugh Ross, Margaret
Jamieson, Agnes Jamieson, Helen Jamieson, James Wilson,
Walter Wilson, David Ross, Mary MacFarland, Jessie Mac-
Farland, Christina MacCallum, Archie MacCallum, Helen
Taylor, John Cathrae, Andrew Beard, Jane Torrence, John
Wilson, Arthur Branscombe, James Branscombe, Henry
Taylor, Louise Stewart, Thomas Stewart, Donald MacKay,
James MacKay, George Riddell, Jane Telfer, Benjamin
Cameron, Rhoda Cameron, James Thomson, Alexander
Thomson and Peter MacCallum.
With hardly one exception these children had been
born in Scotland, born in Canada of parents coming from
Auld Scotia, or were of Scottish extraction in some degi'ee.
From their conversation, we are told, one would have
imagined himself back in a school house in Dumfries, Ayr
or Roxburghshire. Dr. Johnston once said the Lowland
Scottish dialect was the sorriest jargon into which the
English language had ever been twisted. No doubt he
—138—
THE SCHOOLS
had taken something for breakfast that disagreed with
him, and was in an unusually savage temper at the time,
even for such a choleric gentleman as the learned Samuel.
His temper would not have improved had he been com-
pelled to teach school at Annan in the early fifties.
The attendance steadily swelled. In 1850 seventy-
three pupils attended the Annan school at one time or an-
other; in 1851, ninety-nine; in 1852, ninety-three; in 1853,
one hundred and three; in 1854, ninety-four and in 1855,
one hundred and five. Many of these pupils came from
outside the school section proper. Mr. Telford had achiev-
ed enviable notoriety as a teacher, and schools were scarce
in the new settlements. The pupils coming from a long
distance were known as side scholars, and a list of such
scholars for the year 1853 is in evidence: William Doyle,
Robert Hatton, John Hatton, Richard Alexander, Matthew
Alexander, James MacKay, William Dunn, Edwin Dunn,
Ann MacKenzie, John MacKenzie, Alex MacKenzie, Alex
MacLean. Catherine Doyle, Margaret Alexander, Charles
Conner, John MacLaren, John, Michael and Thomas Koran,
Bryan Traynor, Thomas Traynor, Edward Godfrey, John
Traynor and William Howie. There is such a strong
Hibernian flavor about some of these latter names that
one begins to suspect the Scottish preserves were being
poached upon by their Irish neighbors.
Attendance was much better in the winter tlian in the
summer months. In summer the farmer lads were too
busy logging, branding and burning to find time for
schooling. But whenever they could be spared from work,
the school was the first place they were sent to. Many
of the fathers of these boys had had superior educational
advantages in the Old Land but the hope that "springs
perennial in the human breast," that of bettering their
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10
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
material condition, had brought them to a new one,
where one of their few regrets was the advantages they
had enjoj'ed could not be bestowed upon their children.
The average attendance in 1850 was 33 and in 1851 it was
46. In 1852 the summer average was 38 and the follow-
ing winter 54, after which no further notice appears of
averages, for some reason. But judging from the num-
ber attending at some time in the year tliere must have
been certain days in the early winter when eighty or
eighty-five scholars crowded the log school. ^Ir. Telford
sometimes called on the sei'\ices of his eldest daughter,
Miss Margaret Telford, as assistant. He was totally un-
like the aforementioned gentleman, Henry Baker, in every
respect save that of a very considerable learaing. Disci-
pline was his middle name. Many touching treatises have
been written, both before that time and since, upon the
efficacy of moral suasion, and the power of kindness in
enforcing obedience among children. Doubtless Mr. Tel-
ford had read many of them, and given what he had read
calm and unbiased consideration. These to the contrary
I'otwithstanding, he still leaned decidedly to the belief that
his strong right arm with a stout strap at the end of it
had all such methods faded to a sickly pallor. In every-
thing the most careful and painstaking of men, v.hen he
had finished a lesson in discipline not the smallest detail
had been neglected in making the impression of that
lesson both painful and lasting. Many a young Scottish
Canadian, as he lifted up his voice in anguished lamenta-
tions and shed bitter tears of poignant regret, testified to
the fact that, in a very literal sense, the lesson had touch-
ed him in his tenderest spot. In short, Mr, Telford was
known as a "tickler with the tawse." In after years,
however, v/hen time had softened the asperities that al-
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THE SCHOOLS
v.'ays follow sueh inteniews betvceen master and pupil,
these same youngsters, grown to man's estate, were fain
to admit that the dominie's methods were salutary and
had been for their good-
The school system of that day must have been com-
plicated. Theer were half a dozen accounts to keep on
every individual scholar. Thus, they were required to
furnish one quarter cord of cordwood each, delivered at
the school, to the fuel supply. The most minute accounts
were kept of attendance, both in weeks and days, as the
teacher's salarj-, supplemented by a grant from the gov-
erament, was paid by a tax levied on each pupil, accord-
ing to the days he had spent at school. It is almost pa-
thetic to notice the scant number of weeks of schooling
some pupils, who afterwards rose to positions of trust and
responsibility in the township and county, received. One
• of them, who in time became a highly successful contrac-
tor and builder, has a tot-al attendance in all these years
of seven weeks to his credit. The government grant seems
to have been the only money received in a lump sum by
I\Ir. Telford. We find by an entry under date of December
18th, 1850, he received the simi of twelve pounds, fourteen
shillings and two pence from David Armstrong as part of
this gi'ant; on December 21st, 1853, by legislative grant
from Thomas Lunn, fourteen pounds and tenpence; on
August 25th, 1854, from James Ross, by the same source,
fifteen pounds, and on August 21st, 1855, eighteen pounds,
fifteen shillings from the same gentleman. These are a
few of many items of the same nature.
For the tuition fees charged pupils Mr. Telford was
in many cases paid in kind, or in labor performed by their
parents. On January 12th, 1850, James Ross paid him
one hundred and thirty pyounds of beef at three-and-one
—141—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
half cents, and one hundred and four pounds of pork at
four cents per pound, on his school account. In 1849 Wil-
liam Riddell contributes one day logging, one and one half
days barn raising, four and one half days carpenter work,
and so on to the equivalent of one pound, sixteen shillings
and tenpence, for the same purpose. William Lamb is cre-
dited with six pounds, ten-and-one-half shillings for logg-
ing; Robert Easton with sixteen shillings ten-and-one-half
pence for use of oxen, logging, digging, etc., and again,
James Ross and his son Andrew, six shillings and three-
pence for logging and building. George Nesbit has sixteen
shillings and twopence credited to him in a long account;
James Wilson eleven shillings and threepence; David Arm-
strong, one pound, twelve shillings and ninepence, Walter
Aitkin, one pound, one shilling and three pence, and so on,
until the list must have included almost every parent in
the section. All worked out their tuition expense accounts
when Mr. Telford gave them the chance, and as he was
part farmer, owning lifty acres, these chances were fre-
quent. Ready cash was desperately scarce at that time.
Some of the accounts bespeak the Scottish customs of the
period. In 1849 we find Mr. Alex MacFarland, who kept
store at Grady's Corners, credited with twelve window
glasses, one half pound green tea, one half pound tobacco,
one pound saleratus, two and one half gallons of whiskey,
the last item for seven shillings and sixpence, and another
quart of whiskey at ninepence the quart. There is this
much to be said for the whiskey so purchased, that it was
good liquor; not the rotten poison illegally peddled by
bootleggers under a prohibitory law.
In 1849, Mr. Telford's salary is given at sixty pounds
per annum at four dollars in the pound. This salary was
continued until 1835. when it was raised to seventy-five
—142—
THE SCHOOLS
pounds and rested at that figure until his retirement in
1856. He had a little income from his fifty acres, possibly
the poorest farm on the Lake Shore Line. When we re-
flect that from this meagre salary, largely paid in services
performed, he sent his aged father in Scotland the sum
of four pounds annually until that gentleman's death in
1853, we have some insight into his moral fibre. He had
previously done the same thing while at Gait. The Scot-
tish emigrants of that time might resent any interference,
moral or legal, with what they ate and drank, but many of
them were examples of a filial respect which has not been
so noticeable in later times.
It may be noted in an aside here that the farm Mr.
Telford lived on, about three-quarters of a mile south-east
of Annan, was the homestead originally taken up by Martin
Deacon, Esq. Under date of June 22nd, 1849, Mr. Telford
pays Thomas Gordon, coroner, of Owen Sound, the sum of
fifteen pounds in full settlement of all claims and the im-
provements Mr. Deacon had made on it, house, clearings,
etc. This man was one of those strange anomalies some-
times found in the frontier settlements — an English
gentleman of rare culture and breeding. He was a keen
sportsman and made his living partially by his rifle. He
was found dead in the house Mr. Telford moved into on
coming to the Lake Shore Line from Gait, the appear-
ance of the corpse being strongly suggestive that he had
been the victim of ill treatment, if not positive foul play.
Mr. Thomas Gordon was administrator of the deceased's
affairs.
There were other men like Mr. Deacon among the
pioneers, men of talent and unusual promise in their
younger ye^rs, whose lives were tragically wasted in a new
land. Among them was Henry Baker. Before coming to
Canada Mr. Baker, who was of an old and eminently re-
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
spectable English family, had served an apprenticeship in
one of the largest banking establishments in Paris. He
was an accomplished linguist and spoke French fluently,
and with the proper accent. On the same farm where he
kept a private school at his residence, he built a large log
brewery. He was a steady and reliable customer of his
own manufactured wares, however, and the new industry
was soon discarded. He moved to Owen Sound and taught
French in the schools there. Thus from one occupation
he drifted to another, pursued constantly by a fatal weak-
ness and lack of self control that rendered nugatory all his
naturally fine gifts. He died at last, about forty-five years
ago, in a condition worse than pauperism, and was only
given decent burial through the kindness of a friend of
former years, who has asked that his name be withheld.
He lies in an unmarked and unknown gra,ve in Greenwood
cemetery at Owen Sound.
Sad is the fate of such men. In the twilight of their
lives they must have many a sombre hour of the bitterest
reflection. They have known men with not one half their
talents or opportunities, but who by untiring industry and
making the most of such chances as they had, raise them-
selves to positions of trust and authority, while they were
wallowing in the slough of self indulgence and debauchery.
And if in the world beyond an account must be rendered
for these same talents, how shall they, remembering that
to whom much is given of him shall the more be required,
be prepared to answer for a barren and wasted career in
the great final reckoning? Almost every community has
had in its history, sooner or later, its own Sydney Carton,
but few of these have had the opportunity to atone for
the years in sinning wasted by a death of splendid self-
sacrifice.
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THE SCHOOLS
Among the names of scholars who attended in the
later years of Mr. Telford's regime are many that will stir
the memories of those of a past generation who still so-
journ among us. Some of these names are: Agnes Hark-
ness, Alex Duffy, Abraham Cameron, John Michaelheron,
Frances Ann Cameron, Arthur Cameron, William and
David Glen, Daniel and Henry Taylor, Jessie and Mary
Rutherford, Betsey and Robina Easton, Andrew, Thomas,
Henry, Archie and Burnie Lang, Nancy and Peter Mar-
shall, a certain David Pyette, who has the word "runa-
gate" opposite his name, Jane Burford, John Ogilvie and a
host of others. It should be borne in mind that in that
early day young men of twenty to twenty-four years of
age attended the pioneer schools, and even beards were
not an unknown sight there.
Mr. Telford's successor was William Speedie, who
taught about one and a half years. He was followed by
Mr. Telford's eldest son, William P. Telford, who discharg-
ed the duties of the post more than ten years. In the early
nineties a grandson, Robert Telford, taught the same school
for one year, so Annan enjoys the unique distinction of
having had three generations of one family as its school
teacher. Vvlll the family tradition still be maintained?
Turning now to educational matters in Leith, v\e will
find the record much less satisfactory. Leith was much
the larger village but it did not have the clientage to draw
from. Annan had in the early days, in fact, labored
under such appellations as Vanwyck's Comer, Leith Cor-
ner, Speedieville and Dunedin, but such a rose under any
other name would have sm.elled as sweet. The first school
was conducted in a private house by Robert Grierson, in
1858. The children of school age, in Leith and vicinity,
had hitherton gone up to Annan school. There are no
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
written records extant of any of the proceedings in
connection with Leith's first school, and the human me-
mory must again be relied upon. Here is a list of the first
scholars given in such manner by one of themselves: John
Henry, Janet Henry, Mary Duffy, Maggie Easton, Robert
Glen, Jessie Glen, Mary Cameron, Frances Cameron, Jenny
Cameron, Annie Burr, Willie Buit, James Burr, James
Duffy, Peter Marshall, Nancy Marshall, Nettie Marshall,
James Reid, Jessie Reid, Betsey Reid, Malcolm Rutherford,
Betsey Turnbull, Janet Turnbull, Janet Easton, Robina
Easton. In 1858 the second school house, a square struc-
ture of frame with cottage roof, was built, and this con-
tinued to do duty until 1875. By a freak of fortune it has
long since disappeared, while the first school, a log build
ing, is still standing, and has been remodeled into a com-
fortable dwelling house by Mr. Edmund Buzza, who at this
writing occupies it. However, it must have cost many
times its first value in repairs. Summer visitors will re-
cognize it under the name of Buzzville. When the frame
school was built in 1858 Mr. Grierson became its first tea-
cher, at a salary a little over two hundred dollars per
annum. In the seventeen years it served the section as a
school house its four walls witnessed some of the stormiest
scenes that ever transpired within a school house in
Canada. However it came about, the boys who attended
Leith school, many of them hulking young men, in the de-
cade from 1865 until 1875, acquired a reputation for tur-
bulence and unruly disorder that was far from enviable.
Maybe their teachers did not understand them ; it is certain
that some of them took no pains to understand them. One
of them long afterwards confessed that never for an in-
stant did he so far forget himself as to turn his back to
them. He faced them always, with his back to the wall
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THE SCHOOLS
and ready for a fight. Sometimes the master was openly
defied. They had a game called shinny, an emasculated, or,
more properly, brutalized, hockey, played with a stick
much like a hockey stick, but cut from the stem of a sap-
ling maple with a little half circle on the outer end. A
matched game of shinny was always attended by a casual-
ty list of lesser or greater length, according to the temper
the players found themselves in. It was sometimes play-
ed on the ice, sometimes on terra firma, but it was always
a hard and fast rule of the game that a player must
"shinny on his own side," which meant that one of the
teams must play left-handed and the other right-handed.
No generalship or combination play entered into it — only
hard slugging and an ability to stand up to unlimited
punishment. The sticks were usually about forty-two
inches long, and a teacher one day conceived the idea that
if the handles were cut in half the game might be human-
ized a little. The result was the very opposite from what
he hoped. The edict went into force one morning and was
rescinded next day. To use the shortened sticks it was
found necessary to assume a crouching, stooped position,
and consequently a player found it much easier to slug
his opponent in the face. When the 'old order was revert-
ed to one of the Scott boys came to school carrying a
shinny that looked like a sleigh runner.
There was an old custom in those days known as
'"barring out." No body knows how it originated or where
it came from, but the preponderance of opinion seems to
favor the idea that it was imported from Scotland. On
the 21st of December, which was the day always chosen
for some equally obscure reason, every scholar hurried to ^
school at an early hour, to forestall the appearance of the
teacher. The door was locked and barricaded and the
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>
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
windows fastened down securely. Thus the teacher was
locked out but one sometimes wonders what would have
happened had he stood on guard indefinitely, and so starv-
ed the pupils into letting him in. However, the customary
course of events was that he appeared at the usual hour,
made the appearance of being utterly dumbfounded, shook
his fist furiously at the windows and made sham efforts at
an entrance. Then he retired to the nearest store and sent
down a big bag of candy for division among his rebellious
pupils, and all went home for a holiday.
One year, however, the ending was not such a happy
one. A Mr. MacKerroll was teaching and he, for some
reason, was utterly in the dark as to the reason of this
sudden eruption in the school. Another king had arisen
who knew not Joseph. When he reached the school on
that fateful morning and saw the scholars yelling derisive-
ly in the windows he never hesitated a moment. Walking
up to one of them he smashed a pane with his fist, grasped
a sash from the inside and pulled it out bodily. Then he
vaulted in among the scholars in spite of a rain of blows,
all aimed at his head. There ensued a painful scene which
we will not linger upon. The scholars were soon beaten
into submission, the ringleaders singled out, lined up in
a row and given a hiding that those of them who survive
liave not forgotten from that day to this. The incident,
at the moment, aroused considerable feeling as it was
thought the teacher had been unduly severe, but the time
arrived when both master and pupil looked back and
laughed at it. Mr. MacKerroll died of tuberculosis about
thirty years ago.
Mr. Grierson's immediate successor was a Mr. Jones,
a young Englishman who came up from Durham, and re-
mained a little over a j'^ear. He was an enthusiastic ath-
lete and sportsman, and is chiefly remembered for his
—148—
TPIE SCHOOLS
skill as a cricketer. He made many friends while in the
neighborhood but shortly after his return to Durham liis
career was cut short by cancer. He was followed as tea-
cher by the Moores, father and son. The elder Moore
ruled with a stern hand and administered punishment in
the old fashioned manner with his bare palm, and with
the pupil laid across his knee. This resulted in an un-
looked for denouement one day. The culprit up for punish-
ment was young Tom Waters, later an amateur boxer
who attained considerable celebrity, and now a flourishing
business man in Des Moines. Tom was ever of a pugna-
cious disposition, and when the teacher's heavy hand had
descended once or twice he suddenly lashed out from his
recumbent position and caught him on the jaw with his
right foot. He then scooted for the door, ran all the way
home and never came back.
After the Moore regime came Miss Brown, daughter
in the home of an old Sydenham family, now the wife of
a business man in Montreal, who taught for one year. She
was followed by Robert Henry, a young teacher who had
secured his certificate in a novel manner, and 05ie that
illustrates the scarcity of teachers at the time. Mr.
Henry had come to Canada from Scotland with his father,
a man of great natural ability who had had the advantage
of a fine education in the Old Land. Learning of this his
neighbors came to him and begged of him that he would
consent to become the school teacher in their section. He
preferred his new vocation of farming, however, and posi-
tively declined the request. "But," he said, "here is my
son Robert who shows great aptitude for such a task, in
literary studies at least. He has no certificate, but pos-
sibly some arrangement could be made whereby he could
teach your children." So Robert went into Owen Sound
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
and explained the situation to Thomas Gordon, then Sup-
erintendent of Schools for the district. This gentleman
heai'd his story, gave his man an oral examination of two or
three minutes duration, reached in his desk for a blank,
and filled out a provisional third class certificate. He
handed it to the youthful applicant, who taught school on
the strength of it for over twenty years, and an excellent
teacher he made too. He was a great admirer of his
native country, its literature and music; a devoted student
m all branches of history and well versed in all studies
save mathematics. Of all the teachers who came either
before or after him he paid the most attention to the
moral training of his pupils, and more particularly on the
temperance question, as he was a strong advocate of total
abstinence. In politics he was a strong Liberal, and in
the later years of his life, as one of the Sydenham stal-
warts of the party, stood high in their councils in North
Grey. A man of somewhat hasty temper, one is never-
theless safe in saying that no teacher who ever wielded
the birch in Leith school is held in such affectionate re-
membrance as he by his many pupils, the survivors of
whom, all now well past middle age, are scattered far and
wide over this North American Continent. He died in
1896 while in his fifty-seventh year, and is buried at Leith.
Mr. Henry taught for two separate terms, the last
one being from 1879 to 1882, inclusive. His successor af-
ter the first was Thomas Adair, of the well known sta-
tioners' family in Owen Sound at that time. Then came
Mr. MacKerroll, of barring out fame, who taught for one
year. Mr. MacKenzie came next; in after years he rose
to the mayoralty in North Bay and died in Sudbury, to
which town he had removed as Collector of Customs.
One day in 1875, while Mr. MacKenzie was still tea-
cher, the scholars gathered up books and slates, to many
—150—
THE SCHOOLS
of them the emblems of their bondage, and marched up
in a body to the new schoolhouse. There are grandparents
now living in Sydenham and outside of it who well remem-
ber that moving day, as they were among these scholars.
The new school was built by James MacNeil, who about
fourteen years previously had crossed the border, fought
through the Civil War there, and then returned to Leith
to apprentice himself to the carpenter's trade. There had
been a vigorous battle in the school section as to whether
the school should be of frame or brick construction, the
frame at last winning out. It has done continuous duty
since and its fiftieth anniversary falls in 1925, or next
year, when these lines are written. This is an unusually
long life for a frame building, and if walls could speak
what moving tales would come from its four sides! When
it was opened the average attendance in the winter months
sometimes ran as high as eighty-five and ninety. In our
own remembrance there were over seventy scholars attend-
ing in the winter of 1881-82. At the present time the at-
tendance, alas! could almost be counted on the fingers of
two hands. Nothing could be more eloquent of the gradual
decay of a once flourishing rural district, in point of popu-
lation. It is a matter for congratulation that all the
scholars who left the old school abandoned in 1875 turned
out excellent citizens wherever they made their abode, even
if their behaviour while there did not promise such a de-
duction.
In succession to Mr. MacKenzie came Mr. Robinson,
who taught in 1878. Then Mr. Henry came for his second
regime. Daniel Day came in 1883 and taught until the
end of 1888. A more diligent or conscientious teacher
never .stepped inside a school house. There is no more
wearing task upon the nerves than school teaching and
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
none by which one's sense of justice may be more fairly
estimated. Among the pupils taught by Mr. Day were
many relatives of his own, but the most jaundiced eye
could not discern any favors paid them. After leaving
Leith he taught at Woodford and at Shallow Lake, form-
ing a wide a circle of friends and acquaintances, and the
news of his death in the Western Provinces a few years
ago, a death followed less than a year later by that of his
wife, was received with deep regret by them all. His
eldest son met death at the hands of the Boers in the
South African War, a sacrifice which has been almost for-
gotten in the long list of casualties coming home to Owen
Sound and surrounding townships in the Great War.
A home product, in the person of Arthur Cameron,
came to the same school he had quitted as a pupil a few
years formerly, and taught for two years. This brings
us down, in a manner of speaking, to modern times and
the list will be pursued no farther. Among later teachers
probably the best remembered will be the brothers Clark,
coming from Toronto in the middle nineties, in direct suc-
cession, to the school. The elder, Thomas, or Tom as
everyone called him, is now one of the head masters in
the Normal School at London, and has written several
important text books in his profession.
Our school days fall within the most impressionable
period of our life, and we have all the future years vouch-
safed us in which to review them. The Leith school was,
in one particular, happily situated in the matter of sport.
It is the only school between Owen Sound and Meaford
round in such close contiguity to the bay, and in olden
days this meant a lot to the youthful Leithonians gather-
ed there. It meant an unlimited field for skating in the
winter and the best facilities for bathing and swimming in
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THE SCHOOLS
the summer months. As a consequence there were few
among them of the hardier sex that could not swim at
twelve years of age, if an3^ Life was for them one coi'-
tinuous round of acquatic joys while the swimming season
lasted, and how they managed to make it last surpasses
all human belief. Water so cold that they, in later life,
would shrink from it as they would from the smallpox,
had no terorrs for them then.
One of the games played by both boys and girls in
the Oiden times was known as rounders. This was played
in much the same style as baseball, but in a simplified
form. The ball was lobbed instead of being thrown by the
pitcher, and the catcher was known as a backstop. One
of the rules was that if a player running between bases
were struck by a ball thrown by one of the fielders, he
was out, or in rounders vernacular, "dead." Sometimes,
if the ball were a hard one and the thrower a good strong
boy of fifteen or sixteen, the runner was almost literally
so. One things this game certainly did. It developed a
throwing arm among some of the girls until they could
shoot a ball in as straight and swift as any of the boys.
Rounders alwaj's flourished in the spring months; it was
seldom played after the summer holidays. Among other
games, the very names of which will recall memories of
long-past joys to many a silver haired sojourner in this
vale of sorrows from Leith and Concession A were "Bull
in the ling," "Duck on the rock," "Arbor down," "Pompom
puilaway" and "Bear in the bushes." All these games have
long since fallen into disuse.
The average rural school in Ontario is little like that
of forty and fifty years ago. Teaching methods have im-
proved, but there does not seem to be the zest in life now
there was among pupils then. In the former period young
—153—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
men graduated from the common schools at about the
same age as the young men of today graduate from the
universities. The attendance steadily shrinks as the retir-
ed farmer finds his way to the cities, and the teacher's
salary steadily swells. Next we will have the consolidated
school on a general scale, when the children of half a
township will be housed within four walls. These are
logical developments and in line with the tendency of the
times but sometimes in contemplating them the schoolboy
of former times heaves a long sigh and longs for the olden
schooldays — "the days that are no more."
-151 —
CHAPTER IX.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
Speak low, tread vsoftly through these halls;
Here Genius Uves enshrined!
Here live, in silent majesty,
The monarchs of the mind!
A mighty spirit-host they come
From every age and clime;
Above the buried ^vrecks of years
They breast the tide of Time,
And in their presence-chamber here
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train, f
The gifted and the great.
One of the most wonderful things in our modern ci-
vilization, did we but stop to realize it, is the English
alphabet. Here are twenty-six little characters which,
when set down in their regular order even, look to the
illiterate man like a hopeless jumble of signs. Yet among
the first things taught a child when it enters school
are the twenty-six names of these respective signs, for we
have come to regard illiteracy as a disgrace next door to
a crime. Having learned the names of these little twisted
characters — and what a task some of us found it! — he is
next taught to string them into monosyllables, and so on
until he finds that any word may be formed from them
if they are properly arranged. He has learned to read and
if he shows a liking for his new accomplishment and a
desire to cultivate it, a boundless vista begins to open up
—155—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
to his vision. It is through the medium of these innocent
looking little signs we express to one another the bound-
less thoughts of the universe, and some of these thoughts
begin to interest the young reader. He learns something
of the triumphs of that language we are so proud to call
our own, a language that has spread to the uttermost
corners of the earth, and that in force, in richness, in ap-
titude for all the highest purposes to which the poet, the
philosopher and the orator have put it, is inferior to the
Grecian language alone, if not its equal. He begins to
taste of that noble literature which Macauley well declared
to be "the most splendid and the most durable of the
many glories of England."
Sir John Herschel says in one of his essays, in speak-
ing of a taste for reading: "Give a man this taste and
the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail in
making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands
a most perverse selection of books. You place him in
contact with the best society in every period of history —
with the wisest, the wittiest — with the tenderest, the
bravest and the purest characters that have adorned hu-
manity. You make him a denizen of all nations — a con-
temporary of all ages. The world has been created for
liim. It is morally impossible but that the manners should
take a tinge of good breeding and civilization from having
constantly before one's eyes the way in which the best
bred and best informed have talked and conducted them-
selves in their intercourse with one another."
In 1850 a library association was organized on the
Lake Shore Line, and, about eight years later, another
was formed in the school district of Leith. Long years
afterwards it was our fortune to peruse a list of the con-
tents of both these libraries, and the impression that had
—156—
THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES
been for years growing upon us was by this means con-
firmed, viz., that Noith Sydenham must have been settled
by a superior class of men insofar as intellect was con-
cerned. Speaking in a general sense, men and communi-
ties may safely be judged by the character of their re-
creations and enjoyments. An idle, worthless man seldom
enjoys solid, substantial reading, which is itself the result
of great labor and long-continued effort. Even where he
is capable of its appreciation, it is a mute reproach to his
own idle wortMessness. Thoughtful and earnest minded
men are not content, on the other hand, with the froth and
scum of literature, and this was the case with the men
who settled in the Leith and Annan districts. On Sundays
they demanded the strong meat of the Word in the ser-
mons they listened to, and on week-days their souls de-
manded the equally strong nourishment of a substantial
literature.
This circumstance need not be wondered at. This
whole section of the township was practically a part of
the Scottish Lowlands, cut out and transplanted in Canada.
Many of these men had received the best education af-
forded by the common schools in the land they came from ;
not a few of them had attended the high schools in Edin-
burgh, Dumfries and Ayr. They had a genuine passion
for the acquisition of knowledge.
When the Annan library was first organized, Mr. Gi-
deon Harkness kindly offered part of his residence as the
library room and his estimable wife was chosen the first
librarian. There is no record of what the entrance fee
amounted to, but in the prevailing scarcity of money it
must have been small. Mrs. Harkness had herself a re-
fined taste in literature, which ran largely to biographical
—157—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
works. A great writer has declared that history is only
biography transformed, a biography of the lives of great
men. Gibbon, himself a great historian, declares on the
other hand that history "is, indeed, little more than the
register of the crimes ,follies and misfortunes of man-
kind." So "you pays your money and you takes your
choice." Mrs. Harkness continued as librarian for one
year when the office and the library were transferred to
William Telford, sr. One of the reasons assigned for the
change was that Mr. Harkness, who loved animals of every
kind, kept a big black dog of a most ferocious counten-
ance that was of itself enough to appal the stoutest heart.
The books steadily accumulated. Many of the contri-
butors, lacking ready money, paid their fees in books
brought from Scotland. Among these were Henry Baker,
who gave several bound volumes of the Spectator; George
Nesbit, whose contribution was "Handy Andy," a favorite
of the time; Hugh Reid, who gave a History of the Dis-
ruption of 1843, a volume dear to the heart of every ad-
herent of the Free Kirk; John Telfer, a number of assort-
ed books, and Francis Burford, a scion of an old family of
ancient and honorable lineage, the books presented by
whom all bore the crest and coat of arms ofthe Burford
family. Later Mr. Baker contributed tv^o volumes of
Juvenal's Satires.
A partial list of books that were bought from the
funds follows, as furnished from the memory of a mem-
ber of the library still living. The list is incomplete, of
course, but it will give some idea of the intellectual tastes
of those who made undreamed of sacrifices in ordei to
obtain them. It included Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations ;
the Encyclopedia of English Literature, in two volumes;
Livingstone's Travels in South Africa; Diary of a late
—158—
THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES
Physician, two volumes; Harper's Magazine, six volumes;
David Hume's History of England; D'Aubighney's His-
tory of the Reformation; four volumes of Hugh Millar's
Geological Works; Buckland's Geology, or the Bridgewater
Treatise; three volumes of the Edinburgh Magazine; the
Quarterly and Blackwood's Magazines; Life of Dr. Chal-
mers ; Dr. Chalmers' Astronomical Discourses ; Spurgeon's
Sermons; Chambers' Information for the People; Cham-
bers' Miscellaney; Butler's Analogy; Josephus' Works;
Pilgrim's Progress; Maurice's Geography of the Sea; Ma-
cauley's History of England and Boswell's Life of John-
tsone, in five volumes.
In fiction there were Wilson's "Tales of the Scottish
Border," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," several of the W^averley
novels of course, Hogg's "Winter Evening Tales," Gold-
smith's "Vicar of Wakefield," and a few others. That de-
partment, however, was a small one and totally unlike the
fiction section in our modern libraries, which overshadows
everything else. Of the poets there was a goodly array.
Burns, Byron, Moore, Goldsmith and Scott being the
favorites.
These books and others like them were not bought
for show, or for an empty display of learning. They were
read — many of them by the same people over and over
again. The money which bought them was so scarce and
hard earned that each book was a treasure in itself. It
must be remembered that the men and women who read
them did sto by the light of tallow candles, and in their
first log houses. It must have been disconcerting to the
stranger to find such men discoursing familiarly upon the
contents of the Wealtli of Nations, or Dutler's Analogy.
The modern fiction fiend who steps into a stationery store
—159—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
on the day they are first placed on sale and buys the latest
novel by Sabatini, Conrad or Edith Wharton, takes it home
and devours it at one sitting, with about as much mental
nourishment as he would derive from the perusal of a de-
partment store catalogue, cannot conceive what these
books of the most substantial information meant to the
patrons of the Lake Shore Line library.
There were pedants among them of course. One old
lady professed to have read all the serious literature worth
reading — rather a wide claim. Some had the temerity
not to believe it.
"Have you read a book called 'The Horror of Horrors'
Mrs. L ?" enquired one of her neighbors, while in
conversation with this lady of learning.
"Why, yes," she replied, "a score of times."
"You're a liar — there is no such book!" retorted the
neighbor.
One of the books that made a great sensation when
it was first published about this time was "Uncle Tom's
Cabin." It is almost or quite impossible for present daj'^
readers to realize the bitterness of the struggle then be-
ing waged in the neighboring republic over the slavery
issue. Everything was subordinated to it. The South was
supreme in Congress, and the slave owners had many de-
fenders in the North who believed what they said, that
slavery was a God-ordained institution. This seems a
preposterous position to us now, but the majority of Am-
ericans at that time believed it. Maybe they believed it
because the rise of cotton growing had made slavery pi-ofit-
able. The struggle for supremacy betv/een the two fac-
tions in Kansas and Nebraska, the John Brown insurrec-
tion of tlie late fifties at Harper's Ferry, and a hundred
other historic incidents, most of them marked by violence,
—160—
THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES
all culminated in the election of Lincoln in the fall of
1860, when the South, seeing herself hopelessly beaten in
Congress, drew the sword, threw away the scabbard and
appealed to the God of Battles.
Those were stirring days, even in Canada. It sur-
prises us now to learn that the general conviction in Syden-
ham was, in the first two and one half years of the con-
flict at least, that the South was sure to win. Our hind-
sight is always better than our foresight; we are all wise
after the event.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the piece de resistance of
anti-slavery literature. Harriet Beecher Stowe was called
to the White House by Lincoln and thanked for writing it.
On the Lake Shore Line the book was read on the instal-
ment system. When work was done and supper eaten one
member of the family took it for a half hour or an hour,
according to the time agreed upon. Then it was handed
over to another member who read for the same length of
time, while the others impatiently watched the clock, and
so on. It was a topic of conversation for weeks after all
had finished it.
Some years later — the exact date has been forgotten
— a temperance society was organized, public sentiment
having changed since the Reverend Mr. MacKinnon's time,
and this institution also supported a library for its mem-
bers. A lodge of the British-American Good Templars
was about this time organized in the school district at Leith
and its library, part of which is still in evidence, was also
a good one. The two libraries at Annan were united after
the church was built in 1882, and as the temperance society
met in its basement the new combination found a home
there also. Another generation has arisen, the library
—161—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHA.Al
has long since lost its patrons, and the books are scatter-
ed or have been destroyed. Some have been preserved by
the old people as souvenirs of something in which they
once found a solace and quiet enjoyment. The younger
people find no pleasure in them and probably would esteem
the time spent in reading them as wasted.
When young, indeed.
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
Our young people, when they read at all, are more
interested in the flood of fiction that year after year pours
in hundreds of tons from the presses of the big publishing
houses, here and in the United States. Whiskey may
poison the body, but as a mind poisoner our modern novel,
with its eternal hogwash of sex, stands without a rival.
It paints nothing as it is and everything as it is not. It
gives the reader a false, unnatural and distorted view of
life as it really is, but this is all done for a purpose. As
a late writer has well said of it: "The pabulum of the
modern novel in its various dressings is mostly provided
by the anomalies and futilities of a society of inequality
wielded by a false sense of duty, which produces the ne-
cessary imbroglio wherewith to embarrass the hero and
heroine through the due number of pages." There are
notable exceptions to all the foregoing among our fiction
writers and our young people who have a taste for reading,
but in the vast majority of cases it is true. Our taste
in literature has by such an influence become a depraved
and vitiated one. Some of the energy displayed by our
excellent friends, the prohibitionists, might be better em-
ployed in combatting this subtle and insidious evil.
—162—
THE PUBLIC LIBRAPwIES
Many of these patrons of the Lake Shore Line and
Leith libraries, well read and well informed as they were,
made curious miscalculations and mistakes. In 1857 the
first attempts were made at laying- an Atlantic cable. The
mails were being brought by boat from Owen Sound to
Leith twice a week, on Tuesday and Saturdays, at that
time. In due time they brought the news of this daring
experiment to the village, and one day a solemn conclave
of farmers and villagers discussed the tidings pro and
con, and the chances of its success. At the conclusion of
the discussion, when all had ventured their opinions, it
was unanimously decided that the whole idea was the
hallucination of a disordered intellect and that the pro-
moters of the enterprise should be locked up in an asylum
as madmen. We have this story from one who was pre-
sent at the meeting ,which was an informal one and held
in the post office. However, about a year later, or in
August, 1858, to be precise, came the word that the great
experiment had succeeded and that a text of Scripture,
"Glory to God in the highest, on earth, peace, goodwill to
men" had been flashed along the bed of the Atlantic as
England's first greeting to America over the wire. The
message on its original telegraphic tape is still preserved
in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, and is one of
the most wonderful sights in that theatre of wonders,
when one stops to reflect upon what its production meant.
It will be remembered that after a few weeks' operation
the cable was mysteriously stricken silent. But it had been
proved that man had triumphed over the forces of nature
once more ; a new one was soon in operation, the wise men
of Leith were given a lesson in experience — and we seem
to be as far as ever from peace on earth.
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
For the library at Leith the entrance fee was fixed
at fifty cents and the dues at twenty-five cents a year.
Allan Ross was its first librarian and secretary-treasurer
and held these offices about twelve years. It boasted al-
most all the books found in the Annan library, a complete
set of Shakespeare's work's, Scott's Life of Napoleon, Hom-
er's Iliad, Dick's complete works, Dwight's Theology and
many other works of the same standard. The world's store
of accumulated knowledge was small in that day when
compared with ours, when men specialize in one branch
of it and even then hope to master only a small part of
that branch. But the patrons of these libraries were evi-
dently determined to absorb all they could of the store of
knowledge then available. A portion of this latter hbrary,
which long ago ceased to circulate, still is found on the
old shelves, but with the volumes are mixed a lot of school
boy stories that seem sadly incongruous in such company.
In many respects we live in a vastly better world than
that of sixty and seventy years ago, but in the quality
of our daily reading it is to be doubted if we have made
any advancement over the people of that time. The evi-
dence seems to point the other way.
— IG'l -
CHAPTER X.
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
It will be remembered that in a previous chapter men-
tion was made of the Reverend Mr. MacKinnon endeavor-
ing to organize a total abstinence society, and how the
attempt met with utter failure. Since writing that chap-
ter we have received additional information of this meet-
ing, which does not substantially alter the facts as related,
Thomas Lunn, then an elder in the Annan congregation,
was one of those who opposed the idea, quoting Scripture
in defense of his position. Not one of those present would
consent to sign the pledge and Mr. MacKinnon closed the
meeting with a tart remark — "Very well, then, we will
shut up shop."
Had Mr. MacKinnon stayed in the community about
ten years longer he would have seen a wonderful change
there, in the attitude of public sentiment toward temper-
ance reform. This change was particularly noticeable in
the young generation, then growing up. The temperance
movement was steadily spreading everywhere in the
United States and Canada, and thoughtful and earnest
minded men were joining it by the thousands. It cannot
be denied there was great room for improvement in the
habits of the people in this respect. On the Lake Shore
Line and at Leith there were families where the fathers
rarely drank to excess but who, nevertheless, kept liquor
constantly in the house, and who thought it a breach of
hospitality if a glass of it were not offered to the neigh-
bor who dropped in for a friendly call. It was a matter
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
of remark that the strongest advocates of total abstinence
were to be found among the sons of these same fathers, and
these same sons were foremost in the temperance move-
ment, when it got fairly under way.
A temperance society was organized at Annan in the
late fifties, (the exact date has been forgotten) and an-
other was shortly afterward started at Leith. The mem-
bers of both were pledged to total abstinence from the
use of liquor as a beverage, which meant something in
that day and age. Almost every village in the Province,
however small, had its tavern, and licenses were granted
on the flimsiest pretexts. Many of these taverns were a
necessity to the travelling public, and were well conducted
public houses with an honest reason for their existence.
Others were vile drinking dens — traps for the young and
weak willed and a curse both to their own proprietors and
the communities where they found a foothold. The early
temperance societies of Ontario did not stress the idea of
total prohibition of the liquor traffic so much as they did
the elimination of these latter places, and the evil effects
of the traffic in general on the minds and morals of the
people. There is no doubt but that they accomplished a
great deal of good, but they accomplished it in the face of
a flood of ridicule, and the most determined opposition.
In the small villages the local' tavern keeper and his sup-
porters were at open war with the leaders in the temper-
ance movement ,and as from the nature of their sur-
roundings these people were often compelled to do busi-
ness with one another, the usual civilities of society were
apt to be strained in the contact.
Speaking in a general sense, we may accept it as true
that it is the pioneers in any movement who bear its
heaviest burdens and fight its hardest battles. The Ross
—166—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
brothers, David and Hugh C, had started storekeeping in
Annan about this time, and were strong temperance men.
They joined hands with James and Wilham P. Telford and
a shed was built for the shelter of teams passing through
the village and a reading room opened for the accommo-
dation of their drivers, in the store of Ross Brothers, the
brothers Telford furnishing the magazines and other read-
ing matter. These were activities that any tavern keeper,
who found the patronage of his house suffer in consequence
of them, could hardly be expected to survey with a friend-
ly eye, but they showed at least that the gentlemen who
indulged in them were not afraid to back their convictions
with their good money.
The movement was going strong in Owen Sound also.
Sometimes the Annan folks had the pleasure of listening
to temperance lectures by the leaders in the movement
there. Among these was William Wye Smith, a gentle-
man so well known to the older generation he needs no
introduction here. He was at this time editor of the
Owen Sound Times, and a voluminous and interesting
writer on many subjects. Among other books he publish-
ed a gazatteer of Grey County in 1865, copies of whicli are
now rare. It is a most comprehensive work of its kind :
as the editor of the Sun-Times told us, "he must have cur-
ried the county with a fine tooth comb." Mr. Smith was a
strong temperance advocate, and his appearances at Annan
were always hailed with delight by the drys. Other tem-
perance orators from town were William Kennedy, the
Reverend Mr. Robinson, and John Blyth, tailor. The Re-
verend Mr. Robinson vvas a Congregationalist minister at
Owen Sound, and an effective temperance orator. The
movement in time grew popular under such ministrations,
and the decided majorities given by Sydenham long years
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
afterwards in the prohibition question, could be traced
back directly to the efforts of the temperance society at
Annan. Of course there were old topers who signed the
pledge and became members only to sink back into their
old habits, but every good movement has its backsliders.
Other events that were eagerly looked forward to
were the soirees, held only in the winter months. These
functions were held in the frame school house at Annan,
the immediate predecessor of the present brick one. There
was no trouble in getting speakers from Owen Sound, as
in almost all cases they were eager to come. For a coun-
try village, the vocal music at these social gatherings was
of an unusually high order. Two exceptionally fine singers
of the period were William Garvie and Alexander Duncan.
Their taste ran along similar lines and both were partial
to the old English sea songs, such as "The Minute Gun at
Sea," "The Bay of Biscay," "Tom Bowline" and "The
White Squall," and they were always sure of an apprecia-
tive audience. Old timers, to whom of course distance
may lend its usual enchantment, even yet declare that the
rendition, as a duet, of some old favorite song by these
gentlemen, was to them a chef d'oeuvre of pure musical
enjoyment. Both conducted singing classes in the early
days, and helped to develop some splendid local talent.
The late James Aitkin had a voice that in range and purity
would be hard to excel and which, even though lacking
the higher training, was a constant source of delight to
his friends. He was one among many; in fact Annan, be-
tween forty and fifty years ago, boasted some as fine vocal
talent as would be found in the larger cities of Ontario.
The opening of the Annan church in the winter of 1882-83
was made the occasion of a concert by a chorus choir,
composed of the best voices in Leith and the Lake Shore,
—168—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
which is still remembered as the best event of its kind
ever held in the community. It is unfortunate that a list
of the musicians participating and their musical pro-
gramme cannot be given here.
These soirees were often strictly informal affairs, but
none the less enjoyable. In later years they were known
by the more intelligible name of tea meetings. The chair-
man, in Annan at least, was frequently chosen from the
audience, on a show of hands. Sometimes the programme
was an impromptu one. Every singer in the locality had
some favorite Scottish song he could sing better than any-
one else and at these impromptu concerts he would, in all
probability, be called upon to show proof of his superiority
in his special selection. First in the order of business,
however, came the satisfaction of the inner man. Coffee
was then an outlandish beverage, but the tea served was
the best of its kind. It was customary for those who in-
tended being present to forego supper and thus whet their
appetites for the occasion. Their strong-est onslaughts on
the trencher were, however, anticipated in almost every
case and some poor family in the neighborhood always re-
joiced for about a week afterwards on the leavings of the
feast. With the musical numbers that followed, were
speeches on the widest variety of subjects. Einstein's
theory of relativity then belonged to a day far in the fu-
ture, or doubtless it would have come in for a learned dis-
section. Doctor Allan Sloane discoursed on chemistry, the
Reverend Robert Dewar untangled some knot in moral
philosophy, and Doctor Lang spoke in his usual vigorous
style upon various aspects of the medical profession.
Among the speakers from Owen Sound were A. M. Ste-
phens, who held political opinions as widely divergent as
the two poles from the great majority of those present,
—169—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
but wJio was nevei-theless always given the heartiest pos-
sible reception ; William Stephens, who was accused of
writing verse and modestly admitted the fact; John Wil-
son, engineer, and the builder and proprietor of Wilson's
Mills, on Reefer's creek, who descanted upon the rudiments
of engineering practise; John Frost, of the well known
Owen Sound family of that name, and several others whose
names are now forgotten. While the gentlemen from
Owen Sound were doubtless as fond of the sound of their
own voices as the average orator is, they made no secret
of the fact that they came to Annan to enjoy an evening
of pure fun and to hear some Scottish music "as was
music." An occasion is still remembered when one of them,
upon his arrival at the schoolhouse, opened the door, step-
ped inside and lifting up his voice, announced for the bene-
fit of everyone present that he had come all the way dov/n
from Owen Sound to hear Miss T sing "The
Flowers of the Forest." On certain evenings it was the
custom of the chairman to call some of the local poets to
the platform; they were directed to march down to the
door improvising a stanza of verse on the way, and repeat
it while marching back to the rostrum. The result of such
hasty preparation was often of such an atrocious charac-
ter that the poet's peregrinations were known to end in a
near-riot; sometimes, on the other hand, if the divine
afflatus came down at the critical moment, and in the
proper proportion, it was surprisingly good. But the
audience was always sure of a good laugh. Sometimes the
soirees broke up with a dance of two or three hours dura-
tion, the dancing being remarkable more for its vigor than
its grace. Like the witches in Auld Alloway Kirk they
danced
—170—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
"Nae cotillions brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels."
The assembly then dispersed and the merrymakers went
home, much the better of the evening's enjoyment.
The Leith soirees were replicas of the same events at
Annan, with one exception. After his coming to the vil-
lage in 1857, it would have been deemed little short of
sacrilege at such a gathering not to invite Mr. Adam Ains-
lie to officiate as chairman. Nobody fitted more naturally
into such a position, or discharged its duties with the
same eclat. The classic phrase, the ready jest and the
rounded periods flowed from his exuberant fancy like
water from the spring. His education and his training
as an attorney, together with a fund of Scottish wit and
humor that seemed inexhaustible, were other factors that
made his chairmanship at a soiree worth the price of ad-
mission alone. Before coming from Gait to Leith he had
been the leading figure in a social club that had received
the soubriquet of "the Knights of the Round Table," which
met almost nightly in the Queen's Arms Hotel, the leading
hostelry in that town, when politics, local gossip, games
and conviviality were indulged in. He had a pleasing
baritone voice and at the Leith soirees, after opening the
evening's programme with an apposite address that put
everybody in good humor, used to give it expression in
an old Scottish song yclept "The barring o' the door," the
closing line of which was always drowned in a thunderous
applause that threatened to lift the roof. There is no re-
cord of his first appearance in this happy capacity at such
gatherings, but we have a vivid personal recollection of
his last one. It was at a cricket concert in 1884, which
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
year swims within our ken. Mr. Ainslie was then well
stricken in years, but he carried the honor of his position
with as pungent a wit and readiness of expression as ever.
At one of these entertainments Mr. Ainslie called up-
on an old Highlander in the audience for a song, to be in his
native Gaelic. The request was not complied with. "She's
left ta Gaelic at home with her wife" was the Highland-
er's excuse.
The summer season was naturally the gala time for
sport by both flood and field, in North Sydenham. Cricket
began to be played in Annan in the late fifties, and was
soon followed to the exclusion of every other forni of
sport. An old diary, kept at Annan between the years
1860 and 1864, is by our hand. From the beginning of
June until the end of August in these years there are
frequent entries of the practises engaged in, and the
matches played. One item tells of a match between the
Old Men and the Young Men, in which filial respect was
thrown to the winds and the young men gave their elders
a severe drubbing. Briar Hill and Balaclava also had good
teams at this time. The Scott brothers, George and John,
the latter of whom is at this writing still living at Annan,
were among the best players at Balaclava. The first match
in the township was plaj^ed there about 1864. The leading
feature of this, and subsequent matches, was the enthus-
iastic rooting of the partisans of the opposing elevens.
The Annan team won, but some bitter feeling was engend-
ered and the return match, played at Annan in the follow-
ing year, was never finished. In the first half of the se-
second inning a decision was given by the lialaclava umpiiT
to which an Annan bowler objected. He was told by the
umpire to shut his mouth, and the subsequent proceedings
—172—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
were marked by personalities of a painful directness, the
whole ending in a general row which broke up the game.
A few years later, or along about 1868, P. C. MacGregor,
having arrived at cricket age, commenced playing with
Balaclava and, both as a batsman and bowler, soon became
feared by other elevens in the township. He soon divided
his affections between the Briar Hill, Balaclava and Leith
clubs and was warmly welcomed to all of them. Briar
Hill about this time had an umpire known as Mr. D
and iMr. D 's appearance at a match was always ac-
cepted by Briar Hill's opponents as an augury they had
lost the match before a bat was hfted. When one enquired
the reason for such direful forebodings he was generally
met by a bitter diatribe against Mr. D and all his
works, more particularly his decisions at a cricket match.
There was a possibility, it was explained, of bealiing the
men from the Hill in a fair and honest fight but no chance
of beating them with D as their twelfth man. His
unpopularity never disturbed that gentleman's equanimity
for a moment, however; he always finished a match in as
jaunty a spirit as he began it.
The game was introduced in Leith by Mr. Jones, next
successor to Robert Grierson, who was Leith's first school^
master. Mr. Jones was a fine all round player, and a great
coach. Round arm bowling was first taught Leith cricket-
ers by Archie Ainslie, and the old system of underhand,
or lob bowling, was about 1870 almost universally discard-
ed. Leith developed a fine eleven in the seventies, and
those who regard cricket as a slow game should have wit-
nessed some of the battles waged in the Old Distillery
Field, at this period and in the early eighties. Among
their worthiest opponents was an eleven from Walters
Falls. They were always accompanied by an enthusiastic
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
crowd of boosters, prepared to root energeticaly for their
home team, and when the two sides closed in a grapple
which meant nothing short of disgrace for the loser the
savage interest displayed by the partisans of both sur-
passes all description. It is all part of an almost forgotten
memory now, but there are still a few old men living who
remember it, and the roar of cheers that followed every
wicket taken and every run added to the score, near the
close of a hard fought game. There was no betting and a
thrown game was undreamed of ; every man fought for his
team and gave the last ounce that was in him.
Those were the days of real sport in the country vil-
lages. They are gone, and nothing can compensate us for
their absence. The village playing grounds which once
swarmed with young athletes in the long summer evenings
are now silent and deserted. The large cities have swal-
lowed these young men, and are remorselessly reaching out
for more. As Byron said :
"In the good old days — all days when old are good !" ;
but who shall say those were not the good old
days of the rural districts and days which, judged
from prenent appearances, they shall never see
again ! Country life has, in certain respects, gained im-
measurably since then. We have free rural mail delivery,
the telephone, the motor car and a hundred other conven-
iences, then unknown. In gaining these we have lost the
flower of our population and a zest in life that sweetened
the hardest toil. Are we the gainers after all? It is an
open question. There is always a bitter drop at the bot-
tom of the chalice, and before starting in to commiserate
the folks of fifty years ago we should remember we are
carrying burdens and wrestling with problems that were
undreamed of in their day.
—17-1—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEINIENTS
In the natural exchange of sporting amenities Leith
and Annan often clashed in cricket, which may sound a
little like a paradox. Among Annan's best exponents of
the game were WiUiam Wilson, lately deceased at Tre-
ehrne, Man.; Andrew Armstrong, now of Owen Sound ;
Robert Dewar, who makes Philadelphia his home; David
Burr, who went to Minneapolis ; John Alexander, William
Couper, John Clark, and a score of others whose names are
not so easily recalled after the lapse of years. Of the Leith
cricketers, few indeed are left in the village or vicinity to
recount the glories of the game, or tell of ancient battles
lost or won. The MacNeil brothers, Malcolm, Neil and
Walter, all witnessed a good confession in the game, and
all are deceased. Robert Glen, a fine round arm bowler,
still lives in the West; the Fawcett brothers, Joseph, Ri-
chard and Robert, the two first named of whom still
survive, were among the best of them in the late seven-
ties; the late John Ainslie was a destructive bowler and a
steady batsman and the Scott boys, Marshall and Charlie,
always rendered a good acocunt of themselves. John Mac-
Keen was among the very earliest players, and in later
years was almost invariably the Leith umpire in its con-
tests with other clubs. Theodore Rixon is remembered as
an exceptionally heavy hitter, and the Reid brothers, Mal-
colm and Robert, were dependable men in every depart-
ment of the game.
From the very earliest settlement in the village the
Leith people always evinced the warmest interest in
aquatic sports. The easiest way of communication with
Owen Sound was by boat, and in the annual regattas held
there Leith was almost always represented. In an old
letter dated August 15th, 1853, the writer says that "there
was a boat race a while ago between Sydenham (Owen
— ITo—
REMINISCENCES OF NOPwTH SYDENIL-\M
Sound) and Leith; the first prize for sailing boats was
two pounds and the first prize for rowing boats one pound
ten shilHngs." Unfortunately the writer then drops the
subject and we are left in the dark as to the names of the
contestants in these races, and those of the sailboats with
their owners. These are very modest prizes, but the fact
that the amount of cash is mentioned in each case is a
proof of the scarcity of money at the time. It would be
hard in this day to find a business man or farmer who
would consent to pull a skiff over the length of a race
course of 1853, let alone spend his spare time for weeks
in preparation for a race, as the oarsmen of that time
did. Yet from the stories that have come down to us,
these sailing and rowing contests were as fiercely fought
as were the cricket matches of later years. They were
genuine trials of skill and strength between rival com-
munities, to find out which had the better men.
In time these battles for supremacy, continued on up
through the sixties, seventies and early eighties, developed
some fine oarsmen at Leith. Middle aged men still re-
member the time when the sailing vessel was, to all prac-
tical intents, wiped out on the Great Lakes, and the annual
regattas died about the same time or shortly before. The
gradual incursions of the motor launch spelled their de-
struction. It is a vastly more speedy and convenient means
of water locomotion, but decidedly less picturesque. Most
of them were equally at home handling either the oar or
the sail, and some of their feats of endurance seem almost
unreasonable in these days, when motor propulsion makes
everything so easy. The late John Telford of Durham,
formerly of Annan, once rowed up from Meaford to Owen
Sound without once going ashore, which may not seem
such an extraordinary feat when one learns that Captain
— ITG—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
John Ainslie rowed down from Tobermory, in a continuous
voyage which ended only at the Leith dock. The lat-
ter gentleman will always be remembered as one of Leith's
best all round sportsmen. His education was received in
Leith, to which he came from Gait as a child of two or
three years of age. He followed quite a variety of occu-
pations in his early years but his love of sport was his
strongest characteristic, and it seemed as natural for him
to sit in a boat and row as walking does to the ordinary
man. He was Leith's first telegraph operator, the office
at that time being in the north end of the flour mill, then
owned by his father. At another time he was made miller
and was quite sucecssful at that trade, only if any game
was known to be in the neighborhood John was sure to
be after it with his shotgun, at a moment's notice. When
he returned to the mill the stones would sometimes be
nearly red hot. It was a proud day for the village when
John returned to it as the "champeen" oarsman of the
Georgian Bay, but he wore his honors modestly, even
though he had been the victor in one of the toughest
struggles ever waged for that honor. He had a voice of
pleasing quality, even if untrained, and among our earliest
recollections is one of hearing him singing a duet in com-
pany with the aforesaid John Telford, on a platform at
Annan, at one of the big soirees held in the Reverend John
Mordy's time. This song was called "The Two Obadiahs"
and, curiously enough, we have never since seen it in
print nor heard it sung-. But his first love was a boat,
and when between twenty and thirty years of age he could
navigate a large sail boat with many of our best fresh
water fishermen. He then owned a large two masted
fishin-fr smack in which, one day with Henry Cameron and
Will Burr, he was, through some mishap, piled up on the
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
boulders in a hard gale of wind, and which ended its days
lying bottom upward in the Water o' Leith. In the days
when the Rixon lumber mills were at Tobermory, he often
left Leith for that point in weather that would have kept
prudent men ashore. But his judgment was accurate, and
he seemed to know intuitively what a boat would stand
and vv'hen he had had enough, although in his time he had
some very nervous passengers. But no man yet has been
able to draw a precise line between courage and reckless-
ness. When one of us takes a long chance in some ex-
ploit involving great personal danger, and wins out safely,
we hail him as a hero; another with the same skill takes
the same chance and loses his life, and we call him a fool.
Another good oarsman who helped on more than one
oaccsion to bring the bacon home to Leith from these
annual regattas, was Adam Waddell. Robert Glen was an-
other fine yachtsman, and his square sterned boat, the
"Water Lily," was a frequent entrant at such events.
Along about 1885 he brought a yacht of deep draught
from some point on Lake Ontario to Leith, which, in
sailing qualities, turned out to be a kiUing frost. Some
time in the seventies a four-oared racing shell, built by
Glendinning of Toronto, was brought to Leith, and some
championship races were rowed in this boat. The authen-
tic record of these races, the crews, the courses and the
winners, is not available, with us at least, and it is
doubtful if it is in existence at all. It belongs to a day
when men depended upon their strength of arm, and not
on the horse power of a gasoline engine. If such a record
is still to be found it should be given in official form to
the public as one of the most interesting phases of the
early history of Owen Sound and vicinity, and it is to be
hoped this will be done.
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SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
The most courageous and skillful among these con-
testants at Leith, however, all took off their hats to the
men of the French village, a little hamlet of French-Cana-
dian fishermen which flourished in the early days on the
east shore of the bay, near Owen Sound. This is en-
croax^hing a little on the history of that city, but as these
men carried on their operations as fishermen, in the fall
months at least, around Johnstone Harbor and Vail's Point,
such encroachment may be pardoned. Three families of
of these fishermen stand out prominently in the early his-
tory of the bay ; the Jones, the Desjardines and the
Cotures. There are still a few worthy representatives of
the three left but they do not carry about with them the
flavor of romance some of their fathers did. The water
seemed to be their natural element, and this is particu-
larly true of the Jones' and Cotures. The latter family
was a large one and its two best known members were
designated "Old Joe" and "Young Joe" respectively. Young
Joe was probably the best man in a fishing boat who ever
sailed into Owen Sound harbor. The claim will in all
probability be disputed, but it is safe to say he was as
good as the best. He and his brothers may have been
deficient in certain points, such as education, but what
they did not known about the dangers of Georgian Bay,
the navigation of a fishing boat, and the mysteries of net
fishing in deep water or on the shoals was scarcely worth
knowing. There was no trick or device known to man of
getting the last inch of speed out of a fishing smack with
which young Joe was not thoroughly conversant, and
which he did not use when hard pressed in a race. Such
a record as we have indicated above would show young
Joe's name at or around the top of the prize list, in every
race in which he ever entered. In time he bceame known
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAIM
as one of the most venturesome of the fishermen congre-
gating at Johnstone Harbor, and some of the stories told
of his daring, there and in that vicinity, would seem in-
credible were they not vouched for by witnesses whose
veracity is above question. On one occasion he left the
Harbor in a howling gale from the north-west, when all
the other fishermen thought it safest to stay ashore.
Crossing the bar his boat was caught on the crest of two
huge waves at once, with the result that her hull was
sprung in such a manner that the top of her two spars
clashed one against the other. Familiarity with danger
bred a sort of contempt for it with him, and in time it
came to be that the dirtier the weather was the better he
liked it. It gave him the opportunity of displaying his
splendid skill in seamanship, and danger has its own fas-
cination for such daring spirits, who sometimes court it
to their own destruction. On the afternoon in Septembei;,
1882, before the night on which the ill fated Asia was
lost, he made a spectacular run from his home near Owen
Sound to Johnstone Harbor, and those who still remember
the day will realize the chances he took.
The pitcher went once too often to the well. On
Thanksgiving Day of 1886, with his brother Jim, he at-
tempted the same trip, in a heavy westerly gale which
))lew with ever-increasing fury all day. Thanksgiving Day
was then observed about the 15th of November, and the
first ten days of the month were the closed season for
salmon trout. Joe was going down to the Harbor for the
late fall fishing, with the usual equipment of nets and other
fishing tackle aboard. They left home in the forenoon,
with the gale dead astern and in violent snow squalls. It
was betvveen two of these sqaulls they were last seen from
the land, at a point about four miles below Leith. In the
—180—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
language of the man who saw them, "the boat seemed to
jump from the top of one wave to the next." No trace
of the two bodies was afterwards found, but it was rumor-
ed some wreckage of the boat was picked up on the Chris-
tian Islands, the following spring. They simply disappear-
ed. One would wisii that the veil might be drawn aside
for a moment, and he could see how these brave men met
their death. It is almost a certainty they were drowned
at some point west of the Harbor.
The names of Joseph and James Coture were thus
added to the long list of death's victims by drowning on
the east shore, from a point about two miles below Leith
down to Cape Rich. Coffin Harbor received its ominous
appellation from the fact that in the very earliest days
a coffin was left there for the remains of a man who had
been drowned, but whose body was never recovered. Two
men, Simpson and Taylor, were drowned about five miles
below Leith ; the latter was a son of Henry Taylor of Owen
Sound, and his body was found by his father; that of his
companion, George Simpson, if recollection serves aright,
was never found. It was near the same point a son of
David Armstrong, of Annan, was drowned late one fall
about fifty years ago. He was crossing the lake from the
west shore in heavy weather, also with a companion.
About two hundred yards from shore the boat broached to
in a heavy sea and foundered. Young Armstrong lost his
life, but the other, more fortunate, reached the shore,
although in a condition more dead than alive. The body
was in this case also recovered, the death of this young
man spreading a deep gloom over the whole neighborhood,
as he was a universal favorite. The shore between Coffin
Harbor and Pine Point is such a mass of huge boulders
that one wonders how any one could escape being pounded
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
to pieces in a gale of wind, even if he reached it. At John-
stone Harbor there have been many deaths by drowning,
the best remembered being that of George Scott, who met
his end there one fall about twenty-five years ago, while
trolling. The body was found in the summer following.
Mr. Scott is remembered for his powerful physique, which
stood up under the severest exertions, and also as one of
the most successful trollers that ever haunted the east
shore shoals up until the time of his death. The list given
here is incomplete, of course, but it will be long enough to
reawaken memxories, many of them sad ones.
The fall trolling, just mentioned, received brief notice
in a previous chapter, but a more extended reference may
be made to it here, as it was a season of sport regularly
recognized and participated in by sportsmen from Leith
and Annan. Of late years it is rigidly circumscribed by
law; in the olden days there were no such restrictions, ex-
cept a short close season which was frequently honored
more in the breach than the observance. The Scott fa-
mily, of whom the father, George, is referred to above,
were all enthusiastic and successful trollers; just how suc-
cessful a little incident may be cited as proof. One of the
sons, William, went to what is known as the Big Shoal,
opposite Vail's Point, in a late December afternoon about
forty years ago, duck shooting. He had a line and troll-
ing bait with him as an emergency measure, but did not
anticipate any sport trolling, as the fish bite poorly at that
time of year, and he also had a leaky boat. The ducks
failed to materialize in any quantity, so William cast his
bait overboard in the forlorn hope of getting a salmon or
two. It happened the day was without a breath of air,
which in view of the condition of his boat and the season
of the year was indeed fortunate for him. The salmon
—182—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
trout rarely bite well in a dead calm, for reasons they have
never yet disclosed to anybody. But for some reasons they
changed their accustomed tactics that day, and started
to bite with an eagerness that amounted to ferocity. Un-
like the trolling in October, William had the whole bay
to himself; he was at last compelled to stop and go ashore,
as his boat was full of lake water and fish. He had long
lost count of his catch, but when he reached shore he
found he had killed over eight}^ trout. This is the story
as it was given us years afterwards by a near relative
of his. This unexpected feat was regarded as remai-kable
even in that day of great catches; were he able to dupli-
cate it today his afternoon's sport would net him, at least
fifty dollars.
Johnstone Harbor was the resort of almost all the
fishermen, either with net or trolling bait. The trollers
commenced camping there along about 1878, and came in
increasing numbers the following ten years. There was
in Leith about the year mentioned a huge fishing boat
called the "Nancy Bell," which depended upon sweeps for
propulsion. She carried an indefinite crew, up to the num-
ber of nine or ten. She was what mariners call a "work-
house," which, in their vernacular, means a boat that im-
poses killing hard labor on the crew. The ancient war
galleys of the Mediterranean may have been harder to row,
but not much. Manned by a crew from Leith or Annan,
she seldom went farther from home than Pine Point, but
some splendid catches were chalked up by the old craft.
She generally went down to the Point in the morning and
returned the same evening, but the sport became so at-
tractive that at last they began camping at Johnston
Harbor for the last two weeks in October, when the salmon
trout had come in from deep water to the shoals to spawn.
—183—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The harbor was the resort of most of the fishing pailies
from Owen Sound, and from 1885 until the early nineties
the string of tents just back from the beach was a long
one. Of course there was a great deal of lost time on
account of rough weather, when it was impossible to troll,
and this time was usually spent in hunting such game as
the neighborhood afforded. Our own personal contact
v/ith, and recollections of, the sport, date back to 1887;
in that year a party from Leith and Annan running three
boats trolled a little over eight hundred salmon trout in
the two weeks, and in view of the time lost through un-
favorable weather this was probably as good fishing as
was ever had on the east side shoals. TroUing does not
rank with deer shooting as a form of sport, or at least
such is the popular impression, but it is less expensive
and can generally be found closer home.
Leith and Annan had in former times some excellent
marksmen, either with the rifle or shotgun. The old shoot-
ings matches, usually held in the late fall or early winter
at Annan, attracted sportsmen from all parts of the town-
ship, Christmas day always being signalized by a monster
match, at which turkeys, ducks and geese afforded not
only the targets but the prizes as well. The sport seemed
to die out about forty or forty-five years ago, just when
the breech loading shotgun was coming into popular use.
Leith's crack shot with the old muzzle loading shot gun
was George Dixon. In the wild duck season he kept the
table at home almost constantly supplied in fresh wild
fowl. Two exceptionally good shots, at the lower end of
the township, were Hiram Vanwyck and George Scott.
The latter gentleman was, in the earliest times when deer
were to be found, a famous shot with the rifle and av^ a
young man killed many of them in the vicinity of the Big
—184—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
Clay Banks and Johnstone Harbor, near which he was in
later years destined to lose his own life. In 1887 Captain
Cleland of No. 2 Company, 31st Regiment, presented a
valuable cup to be competed for by teams of five men
each, from every company in the Regiment, at its annual
rifle matches. The rules governing the contest provided
that the team making the highest score for three years
in succession should come into complete possession of the
trophy. The competition that ensued was keen, and some
extraordinarily high scores were made, but No. 3 Company
of Leith maintained its old prestige by carrying off the
prize in the first three matches following the cup's pres-
entation. Mr. David Creighton, then M.P.P. for North
Grey, and himself a Fenian Raid veteran, then presented
the trophy to the winners on the happy occasion of their
third straight victory, and the winners, to show they were
true sportsmen as well as the Regiment's best marksmen,
immediately presented it back to the Regiment, to be com-
peted for annually and ad infinitum.
Another local institution which was a source of great
interest and enjoyment to everybody in the neighborhood
was the Annan Band; more correctly it might have been
called an orchestra. Nobody knows the exact date of its
organization, but it was some time in the late sixties.
It seems to have been like Topsy; it just growed. At last
George Henderson, an exceptionally fine clarinet player
who had been trained in one of the famous Guards' bands
in England, was secured as its leader, and some sort of
regularity and precision injected into its proceedings. The
personell of its members and the instruments they played.
as nearly as can be recollected, was about as follows :
George Henderson, leader and clarinet; James Telford,
clarinet; Frank Cathrae, cornet; Robert Dixon, Robert
—185—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Henry and William Keefer, violins; Adam Waddell, oph-
cleide; William Telford, cello, and Miss Agnes MacLean,
organist. The lady organist was at this time the teacher
at the Separate school in the Irish Block. Adam Waddell,
who had played the tenor slide trombone in his native
Galashiels before coming to Canada, was assigned the
ophcleide on that account. It was a large, unwieldy brass
instrument, resembling the modern saxophone more than
any other, was played with a cup mouthpiece and pitched
in E flat. It had a blaring, strident quality of tone ano
this one was irreverently nicknamed the giraffe. The
ophcleide has long since become obsolete, having been
superseded by the modern euphonium.
This orchestra, as we shall call it, was requisitioned
for all sorts of local engagements. It even played parades
on the streets of Annan, minus the organist of course.
The sight of a man marching down street while playing
the violin would be thought a ludicrous one now, but tastes
change with the passing years. Mr. Henderson after-
wards became bandmaster of the regimental band of Sim-
coe county, with headquarters at Barrie, and died in that
town. William Keefer, one of the violin players, had for
many years a fine span of driving horses, by means of
which the orchestra was conveyed to their engagements in
outlying villages. Much of their music was in manuscript,
copied out by Mr. Henderson; the old Scottish dance
pieces were mostly played "by lug," or to use a more mod-
ern expression, faked.
In one respect these musicians were true artists of
an old school long since passed away — they refused to
accept a cent for their services. This peculiarity may be
deemed a trifle quixotic on their part but it was surely
—186—
SOCIETIES AND SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS
their own business, and it at least showed that they played
from the love of playing, and not what they could get
out of it. On this basis they played engagements at dif-
ferent times in the town hall at Owen Sound, and at
Chatsworth, Massey and Balaclava ; beside many closer
points. Under exceptional circumstances they once play-
ed at Holland Landing. Some of the instruments are still
in evidence. The clarinets are of the old yellow variety,
with six keys, and the reed attached to the mouthpiece by
thread, tightly wrapped around it. Such an instrurhent
has been known, in later times, to start a riot in the thea-
tres of our large cities. There is a tradition among men
of the stage that it is hoodooed, and that bad luck will
assuredly follow the company if one of these yellow
clarinets is used in the pit while they are presenting a
play. In consequence of this they have refused to go on,
the musicians in the orchestra have waxed wroth, and
trouble has ensued. It is a striking example of how an old
superstition will survive. However, the Annan musicians
never suffered any inconvenience by their use. It is a far
cry from this orchestra of fifty and sixty years ago, once
the delight of the denizens of Sydenham, to the jazz fiend
combinations of today's music world, and when all allow-
ances are made for modem methods and music, the ad-
vantage nevertheless does not all lie on one side.
Getting back to outdoor sports again for a moment
before closing this chapter, it may be mentioned that
curling was once played at Annan, although in such an
early day that it is impossible to give any succinct or
authoritative account of either the play or the players. It
was played on a large pond in a swamp on the farm of
Andrew Biggar, and while some of the curlers may have
been skilled players in the Old Land, one naturally wonders
—187—
13
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
how they encompassed the difficulties of securing proper
curling stones, or if they were imported from the older
settlements. The earliest curling club at Gait solved the
same difficulty by turning maple blocks to the required
dimensions, drilling holes in them and filling the same
with lead. The average curler's enthusiasm does not stick
at a trifle.
Enough has been adduced to show that the pioneers
and their children, while their daily labor was hard, knew
the value of recreation in its various forms, and how to
enjoy it. Between hard work and play in its proper time,
their lives never fell into that torpor-like ennui which
is the affliction of the lazy, and little better than a living
death.
18<S -
CHAPTER XL
A MERITORIOUS RECORD
At the urgent request of a few enthusiasts in the
game, it has been decided to insert at this point a partial
record of the cricket matches played between Leith and
its gireatest rival, Owen Sound, from 1870 until 1885 in-
clusive. This record is incomplete, as some of the score
books have been lost, but, such as it is, it will revive old
and pleasant memories in the grizzled veterans of the
game — now, alas ! so few — still remaining among us.
The first game was played at Owen Sound, Sept.
20th, 1870, between Owen Sound and an eleven chosen
from the Annan and Leith clubs. Owen Sound won with
ten wickets to go down.
Owen Sound vs. Leith, at Owen Sound, July 28th,
1871. Leith, 1st inning, 103; 2nd 35. Owen Sound, 1st
inning, 117 ; tied the score in the 2nd v.'ith seven wickets
to go down. As this is the first game of which there
is authentic record of the names of the players, the per-
sonell of the two elevens is given, as follows: Leith: W.
McNeil, Archie Ainslie, J. McKeen, Alex. Ainslie, W. Wil-
son, R. Henry, H. Rixon, A. Spence, Neil McNeil, R. Glen
and W. Moore. Owen Sound: M. Kennedy, M. Firby, W.
C. Hoar, J. Gale, T. B. Miller, Christopher Lang, W. Ken-
nedy, D. Morrison, J. Gordon, Dr. Smith and S. Redfern.
Owen Sound vs. Leith. at Owen Sound, June 15th.
1872: Leith, 1st inning, 53; 2nd 74. Total 127. Owen
Sound, 1st inning 69; 2nd, 39. Total 108. Leith wor.
by 19 runs. For Owen Sound M. Kennedy took 6 v^-ic-
kets in Leith's 1st inning.
—189—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Owen Sound vs. Leith, at Owen Sound, July 12th. 1873.
Leith won by 9 wickets.
The two rivals united for a match this year, and
played Orangeville at Owen Sound on August 23rd, this
being the first game played with that town after the
opening of the T. G. & B. narrow gauge railroad. The
score: Owen Sound and Leith, 1st inning, 55; 2nd, 62.
Orangeville: 1st inning, 55; 2nd, 29 for six wickets down.
Game was not finished but was declared a tie on the first
innings. J. McKeen and W. McNeil of Leith top scorers
for their side.
If a game was played in 1874 between Leith and Owen
Sound, all trace of it has been lost. However, Owen
Sound played Briar Hill on June 6th of this year, the game
going the full two innings, and Owen Sound trimming their
opponents by 21 runs.
In 1875 the two teams met again at Owen Sound
on June 13th and played a one innings game. Leith scor-
ed 81 and Owen Sound 80, the doughty McGregor making
his first appearance with Leith in this match. Leith
won by one run, so it must have been a heart breaking fi-
nish. Leith eleven: R. Glen, P. C. McGregor, J. McLean,
N. McNeil, W. McNeil, John Ainslie, W. Wilson, J. Turn-
bull, J. Fawcett, James Turnbull, eleventh name lost.
Return match at Owen Sound, Aug. 21st, same year.
One innings game. Owen Sound won by 16 runs. Leith
batted in 2nd innings, P. C. McGregor and W. McNeil mak-
ing 30 and 16 respectively. Owen Sound did not bat and
game decided on 1st innings.
Owen Sound vs. Leith, at Owen Sound, June 10th,
1876. Owen Sound, 1st inning, 95. Leith, 1st inning
34; 2nd, 54. Owen Sound won by an inning and 7 runs.
Leith eleven: Messrs. W. McNeil, Ainslie, McGregor. Wil-
son, McKeen, Henry, Day, R. Fawcett, J. Fawcett, M. Mc-
—190—
A MERITORIOUS RECORD
Neil, Telford. This was J, P. Telford's first appearance
for Leith.
Owen Sound vs. Leith at Owen Sound, May 24th, 1877.
Owen Sound 45 and 68 in 1st and 2nd innings respectively,
Leith 39 and 63. Owen Sound won by two wickets and
two runs. Ainslie took 5 wickets in Owen Sound's 2nd
inning.
Return match for 1877 played on Leith grounds, July
6th. Leith won by 66 runs. McNeil, McGregor and
McKeen highest scorers for Leith.
Owen Sound vs. Leith at Owen Sound, May 24th,
1878. Owen Sound, 1st inning, 66. Leith, 1st inning
75; 2nd, 96. Owen Sound did not bat in second innings
and game was decided on the first, Leith winning by 9
runs. M. Kennedy took 4 wickets in Leith's 2nd inning
and J. Ainslie made 31 runs in the same Leith's eleven:
W. Wilson, M. Scott, J. Ainslie, W. McNeil, J. P. Telford,
P. C. MacGregor, Somerville Ross, J. McKeen, W. Reid,
N. McNeil and R. Glen.
Owen Sound vs Leith at Owen Sound, May 24th. 1879.
125; did not bat in 2nd. Game decided on first innings.
Owen Sound winning by 73 runs.
In 1879 Owen Sound claimed to have the best cricket
team in Northern Ontario, and their long string of vic-
tories would seem to substantiate the assertion.
Owen Sound vs. Leith, at Owen Sound, June 12th,
1880. Two innings game. Owen Sound made a total
of 85 in the two innings and Leith 55. Owen Sound won
by 30 runs.
Owen Sound vs. Leith at Owen Sound, June 4th, 1881.
Owen Sound, 1st inning, 22; 2nd, 34. Leith, 1st inning,
Leith: 1st inning 52; 2nd, 105. Owen Sound: 1st inning,
59. Leith won by an inning and 3 runs. Top score for
—191—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Leith made by Telford, with 19 runs. Leitli eleven :
Messrs. Wilson, Glen, Fawcett, Telford, Ainslie, McNeil,
McGregor, Saunders, Reid, Armstrong and Cameron.
Owen Sound vs. Leith at Owen Sound, May 24th, 1882
Scores on this game are not available. Leith won by fou
wickets and ten runs. Ainslie did not play.
For some years previous to the last date the annual
game between Leith and Owen Sound had, by arrange-
ment between the two clubs, been played on May 24th,
the anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth, or on a later
date if the weather was unfavorable. In 1883, owing to
the presence of the two far-famed athletes, Ross and Keat-
ing, at a huge sports' demons J;rat ion in Owen Sound on
that date, the annual game was postponed and if it was
subsequently played that year the record has been lost.
In 1884, for some reason, no game was played.
Owen Sound vs. Leith, at Owen Sound, May 24th,
1885. Owen Sound: 1st inning, 55; 2nd, 49. Leith, 1st
inning, 112. Leith won by one inning and 8 runs. Leith
eleven: Messrs. Scott, Reid, Ross, Clark, McNeil, Alexan-
der, McGregor, Hare, Glen, McDougall and Day. Alex-
ander took 6 wickets in Owen Sound's second inning and
scored 52 runs for Leith. In all round cricket, bowling,
batting and fielding, Alexander had few equals in the
ghme.
A close scrutiny of the above tabulation reveals the
fact that of the fifteen games played, Leith wt)n eight
and Owen Sound seven. If the complete record were
i^vailable it might possibly be found that Owen Sound had
leversed this showing. Everything considered, however,
the two clubs were very evenly matched. For continuity
in the game the best showing is made by Walter McNeil
and Robert Glen for Leith, and Matthew Kennedy for
—192—
A MERITORIOUS RECORD
Owen Sound. The names of the two Leith men appear
in the first and last games covered in the list ,and McNeil
played in every game between.
If the same list were extended to include all the
games played with Walters Falls, Balaklava, Briar Hill
and other points in the township it would fill a small sized
book. The mettle of the Walters Falls Club is best at-
tested by the fact that in two games played with Mea-
ford in 1869 they won both; the first by 5 wickets and
the second by an inning and 41 runs. On July 1st, 1870,
at Owen Sound, they played a one inning game with the
eleven of that place and trounced the town by 75 runs.
They never fared so well in North Sydenham, however.
One of the worst beatings they ever experienced was ad-
ministered to them at Leith at the hands of the village's
eleven, and when they were most confident of winning.
Taken all through the showing made by Leith against
neighboring clubs was a most meritorious one.
—193—
CHAPTER XII.
A FEW OF THE FIRST
As stated at the outset in this little volume, it was
our intention to present brief biographical sketches of a
few of the earliest pioneers in North Sydenham. We
have now arrived at that point in these reminiscences.
These sketches will be found not only brief, but in
some cases lacking- in detail, a fact for which we are not
entirely to blame. When information was sought on this
point, one was painfully reminded of the fact that the
average memory is a short one, and has a limitless capa-
city for forgetting. This is a wise dispensation of Pro-
vidence after all. The memory of past joys remains with
us, and lend to the olden days a charm all their own, and
we are so constituted that the ills and sorrows of past
years are forgotten, or remembered but dimly. Existence
would be intolerable if we remembered our griefs and
trials in their first bitterness. But in the hurry and
cares of modern life it is surprising to learn how many
of the salient facts in the lives of those who first settled
in the township are forgotten. What will have happened,
then, when we of this generation have given way for an-
other one that knows of the pioneers by name only? Ask
the average man to give you a clear and succinct account
of the I'fe of his great-grandfather and not five times in
a liundred will ine answer be a satisfactory one.
In the majority of cases, however, it has been found
possible to give at least the dates or birth and death, thu
eai'ly occupatioii. time of cominsr to Canada and settling
in the township, in the life of each, ."subject as in turn he
comes under di.-scussion.
—194—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
A v^ord Tray be said here as to the photographic re
productions appearing on other pages, of which there are
eighteen in all. Of the eighteen gentlemen whose por-
traits are given, seventeen were bom in Scotland. Wil-
liam F'. Telford was bom near the Scottish Border, but
on the English side of it, of Scottish parents however.
He. Doctor Lang and Thomas Lunn were born in the end
ot" the eighteenth century, and seven others of the eighteen
before the battle of Waterloo. At least one of these re-
membered that event distinctly, and the outburst of na-
tional rejoicing that followed the news when the Duke of
Wellington
"On that loud Sabbath shook the spoiler down."
On a certain day in 1845, when sitting down to din-
ner with his family in his little log house on the Lake
Shore Line he remarked "it was just thirty years ago to-
day— how well I remember it! — that Waterloo was
fought." The saying stuck in the mind of one of the
boys, and long years after he related the incident in our
hearing. The portrait of the first Presbyterian minister
in Leith appears side by side with his colleague at Annan,
who was the first minister of the Lake Shore Line con-
gregation after it was organized on a self-sustaining
basis. The first teachers in Leith and Annan public
schools appear on the same page at Nos. 3 and 4. As far as
possible it was endeavored to secure photographs taken late
in life; that of Walter Aitken was taken a week before his
death. No doubt the shades of this goodly company of Scot-
tish worthies would be intensely surprised were they to learn
their living likenesses had all been gathered together with-
in the covers of a book.
To the selection that has been made of subjects for
these sketches, some exception will doubtless be taken.
—195—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
There were many others among the pioneers of North
Sydenham just as worthy of a place here as those whose
names appear, and perhaps more so. It would prove an
invidious comparison to even name a number of them. But
it was a physical impossibility to include them all; that
task is left for the future historian of Grey County, who, it
is to be hoped, will have the leisure and the means to do
justice to the memory of them all.
Taken collectively, the portraits of these men will
afford an interesting half hour in facial study. One
characteristic is stamped on the countenance of each of
them — a deep-settled and inflexible determination. There
is no other quality will take the place of courage; it has
no substitutes. These pioneers needed the last ounce
of it if they had to withstand the trials and hardships
they faced and endured in the years when they were re-
claiming a township from the wilderness and making it to
blossom as the rose. They are among the real heroes of
Canada. We raise monuments to our soldier dead and
deck them with wreaths, and it is entirely fitting and pro-
per we should do so. But it is well to remember while so
doing that if it had not been for the labors of these men
our soldiers would never have had a country to defend.
They were the true builders of empire — the men who had
the grit and determination to engage in what must hare
seemed at times almost an insurmountable task, and do
the spade work for the on-coming hosts who gathered to
reap where they had planted. Let us suppose for a mo-
ment their work were to be done over again, and under
the same circumstances that prevailed in the forties and
fifties of last century. Suppose Sydenham were by the
stroke of an enchanter's wand restored to the tangled
brush and towering hardwoods covering the land in one
unbroken stretch at that time. How many of the grand-
—196—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
children and great-grandchildren of these men would be
satisfied to make their permanent abode in the midst of
such isolation, and through the daily sweat and toil that
were theirs wrest from Nature the same reward? They
would be few indeed. These men had their own short-
comings and faults. Occasionally some of them drank
a little too much and at barn raisings and logging bees,
when laboring under the stress of a strong excitement,
they were guilty of a vigorous language not found in
prayer books. But they were honest, truthful and law-
abiding', and above all they possessed the supreme qua-
lity of courage — the indomitable energy and perseverance
which tries again and again regardless of failure, until
at last effort is crowned by success
It is not claimed for the first settlers of North Syden-
ham that they are any more entitled to honor than their
brother-pioneers in other parts of the County or Province.
Such a claim would be ridiculous on the face of it. Their
history was marked by no momentous events; the whole
field covered by these reminiscences is a limited one in-
deed. But the hope has been expressed time and agrain,
by many of their descendants, that in some manner the
story of the sacrifices they made and the difficulties
and discouragements they so successfully surmounted
might be told, so that their names and their memory
might not perish from the earth but be preserved as an
example to those following in their steps of what indus-
try, thrift and patience can accomplish in a new land,
where, above all things, men must trust to their own
resources. The consummation of this desire has been the
strongest motive behind the writing of such a story — with
all its imperfections — as the present one. There were
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secondary motives as will be shown later on, but this was
the strongest one.
The»e, then, are a few of the first.
JOHN COUPER
John Couper was born at Clarkstone Toll, in Refrew-
shire, in 1819, of a respectable middle class family. He
was raised on a farm, where he worked as a plowman;
he also gained a thorough knowledge of gardening and
acquired a fine taste in flowers and their successful cul-
ture. When twenty five years of age he came to Ca-
nada and settled first at Gait, which at the time was a
sort of halfway house for many settlers who later came
to Sydenham. He worked there for two years and then
came to Sydenham, taking up a lot on Concession C, on
which he settled in 1847. Here were born and raised his
family of two sons and three daughters.
He was a hard working and successful farmer. Soon
evincing a strong taste for public affairs, he was in 1860
elected a councillor for his ward in the township council,
and served as such until 1866. He then served as de-
puty reeve for one year, and for the two years following
was honored with the reeveship. For many years he
was an elder in the Presbyterian congregation at Annan
and always displayed the keenest interest in its affairs.
As the possessor of an unusually rich voice he frequently
led its service of praise as precentor. His tastes in litera-
ture were keen and discriminating ; Carlyle was a favorite,
of course, but his admiration for Burns was little short
of idolatry. Partly from his extensive reading and partly
from pure love of an argument, he became a controver-
sialist along many lines of thought, and it must be con-
fessed that in battles of this kind his keen wjts rarely
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
met with their equal. When the occasion demanded he
had at his command as dry and subtle a sarcasm as one
would care to listen to.
In the first Provincial election held after Confedera-
iton he contested North Grey in the Liberal interest with
Thomas Scott, Conservative. The elections for the Do-
minion Parliament and the Provincial Legislature were
held simultaneously, in September, 1867, for the first
and only time since Confederation. For the Dominion
Parliament the two contestants were Messrs. Snider and
Boulton, Liberal and Conservative respectively. At the
Liberal nomination meeting there had been three nominees,
James Paterson, John Couper and Thomas Purdy. Mr.
Couper vras nominated but at first positively refused to
stand. Tlie nomination then went to Thomas Purdy, but
he, not being present at the meeting, just as positively de-
clined it when apprised of the action of the convention.
Mr. Couper was then induced to reconsider his declina-
tion. The result on election day was a curious one. Mr.
Snider was elected by 254 majority over his Conservative
opponent, and Mr. Scott beat the Liberal nominee by 259,
there being a difference of only five votes in the two
majorities. It was frequently asserted throughout the
constituency in the following legislative term that, in the
person of Mr. Couper, the electors had left the ablest man
of the four at home.
In all the activities of his home community Mr. Cou-
per took a leading and responsible part. He was a man
who seemed to inspire confidence instinctively; the word
of John Couper was always regarded as a sufficient guar-
anty, for men knew it was as good as his bond. His stan-
dard of morals in political life was a high one and some
of his campaign speeches make good reading even yet,
indicating as they do his high sense of integrity. Such
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
a reputation is more precious than rubies and a priceless
heritage to leave to one's children. In his late years
he was sorely afflicted with rheumatism. He is buried
at Annan, having died at his home near there in 1896,
a long, active and honorable life thus being brought to a
close.
JAMES ROSS
James Somerville Ross was born in Edinburgh in
1801, his father being an employee in the service of go-
vernment in the Customs there. He received his edu-
cation in the High School of that city, the course of study
covering five years, and must have been well up in his
classes as on one occasion he won a prize of a costly time-
piece for reciting one thousand lines of Latin without an
error. After two years spent in Caithness-shire, in the
office of his uncle, who was a fish merchant, he returned
to Edinburgh and was apprenticed in the baking business.
He then established two bake shops, one of them in the
suburb of Currie where he met and married Janet Hen-
derson. In 1835, with his wife and five children, the
youngest six weeks old, he came to Canada in the saihng
vessel Roger Stewart. It was the fifty-second transat-
lantic passage for that vessel's captain and the voyage,
which took about six weeks, was also the calmest one
he had taken. He came to Gait and was there about
seven months; he then moved out to Preston where he
engaged at his trade of baking for two years. Here
he prospered, but the suppression of the MacKenzie re-
bellion was followed by a bad business depression during
which Mr. Ross quit the baking business and, in 1837,
rented a farm near Preston and also started a brick kiln.
In February, 1844, with two or three neighbors he came
to the Lake Shore Line to spy out the land, but the snow
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
was so deep their intention was frustrated and they re-
turned to Gait. Late in March he walked up to Owen
Sound alone, went down the Lake Shore Line, examined
the land and chose the farm he afterwards occupied, but
the land was not in the market at the time. He asked
John Telfer to file his application for it and returned to
Gait. This was Lot 38, concession C and was chosen be-
cause of a good spring at the back of it. The Land
Agent's office awarded him the lot and on May 10th, Mr.
Ross and his two eldest sons having arrived from Gait
at the Lake Shore Line, the first tree ever chopped on it
was felled by the three. A shanty was erected and clear-
ing begun. The rest of the family were, with their ef-
fects, brought up in four sleighs in February, 1845. In
March of that year he agaih went to Gait with Andrew
Biggai* to bring back some stock. His fourth son, then
ten years of age, who had remained in Gait, returned to
the Lake Shore with the two, walking the entire distance
of one hundred and eight miles in six days and driving a
sow the whole way. This was regarded as a wonderful
feat even in those days for a boy of ten years, but little
did he realize as he tramped his lonely journey his powers
in long distance pede.strianism would be made a matter
fo record seventy nine years later. About a week aft€#'
their arrival home, one fine morning about eight or ten
little grunters were found following this sow around the
barnyard.
In 1855 Mr. Ross bought a store in Leith from a
gentleman named Wylie and with his sons James and Al-
lan became the firm known as James Ross and Sons. They
did a large general store business and in later years en-
gaged in grain buying as well. He continued a member
of this firm until his death. Mr. Ross had a consider-
able knowledge of common law, was one of the first elders
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in the Annan congregation and was prominent in the edu-
cational affairs of the district. He was a big man phy-
sically, standing well over six feet,and was of a grave
demeanor. All his life he was an enthusiastic curler, and
he even tried with some success to introduce the roarin'
game at Annan. His wife died at Leith in 1869 and in
the following year he visited Scotland, and the scenes of
his early manhood in Edinburgh. Returning to Canada
he died in February 1871, also at Leith. His remains
rest beside those of his wife in Annan cemetery.
GIDEON Darkness
For a man who exercised such an influence in the
district where he settled and led such a long and honor-
able career, veiy few of the facts in Mr. Harkness' early
life are available for presentation here. He was born
in Hawick, Roxburghshire, in 1818, and came to Canada
when about twenty six years of age. When a young
man he learned the trade of a stone mason, and learned
it passing well, if one may judge from some of his handi-
craft still remaining in Sydenham. He came direct to
the Lake Shore Line from Scotland and took up land about
half a mile northeast of Annan. For the first few years
after coming, he was accustomed to go to Gait every win-
ter to work, returning in the summer to resume clearing
his land. Here all his family were born and, like all
Scottish-Canadian families of that place and time, raised
to work and work hard. There were no drones in the
hive on the Lake Shore then. Young and old worked
early, and late and few of them indeed suffered any ill
effects from it. The farm Mr. Harkness had chosen had
not the natural advantages possessed by some others, but
excellent judgment in cultivation, and cropping and in
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
farming methods generally, made every square foot of it
a productive one. He was an enthusiastic stockman and
his judgment, in horned stock more particularly, could be
pitted against the best in Grey County with honors to him-
self. As a stock breeder, no man in Sydenham did more
to raise the standard of cattle raising in the township than
he.
In political affairs and public questions in general,
he took an active interest, but never a leading part. Hard
headed common sense and shrewdness were his out-
standing characteristics, and it is fortunate for all of us such
men are found in every rank in life and in every com-
munity. They keep their own feet and the feet of their
neighbors on the solid ground, and their heads out of the
clouds. From the very beginning he took a prominent
place in the affairs of the Presbyterian congregation at
Annan and was for many years its leading elder. He was
one of the organizers of the Sydenham Mutual Fire In-
surance Company and became its first president. After
twenty years spent in Canada he visited his birthplace
in Scotland, and while he found the condition of the work-
ing people greatly improved, he had no desire to stay
there. Of all his fellow Scots in the district, he pre-
served to the very last his native dialect in its richest
and purest form. In time it grew, in fact, to be a little
bewildering to the young Canadians who had grown up
around him. His success in prize winning at the fall fairs
was perhaps the best evidence of the interest he took in
his calling. These annual competitions were potent
events in the life of a farmer sixty years ago, and a
genuine promotive of good husbandry. To the end of
his life everything that tended to improve the lot of the
farmer and the general practise in agriculture had hi.s
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
heartiest support. He died in his seventy-seventh year,
his remains following those of many a fellow-pioneer to
their last resting place in the Annan cemetery.
WILLIAM BROWN
The ancient town of Hawick was, in the early years
of the nineteenth century, the birthplace of many a future
Grey County pioneer. The men of Hawick were in an-
cient times famous for their intrepid valor in war, and
an instance of it that has passed into a fondly cherished
tradition may be briefly recounted here.
In 1513, when King James IV of Scotland summoned
all the men throughout the length and breadth of his king-
dom, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, to his stan-
dard at the Borough-moore in Edinburgh for the invasion
of England, the story goes that the response to the call
to the colors was unanimous in Hawick. The town was
stripped bare of fighting men; none but old men and boys
were left. King James crossed the border with the lar-
gest force ever gathered under one Scottish leader up
"until that time. He met the English host led by the Earl
of Surrey at Flodden, and every schoolboy knows the is-
sue of the battle that followed. The remnant of the
Scottish army fled back into Scotland, but Surrey did not
follow up his advantage, probably because the forces under
his command had been manhandled too severely by the
men of the North. Parties of his soldiers, however, cross-
ed the border on marauding expeditions, and one of these
found its way into the neighborhood of Hawick. They
encamped in a ravine not far from the town, intending
to loot it at their pleasure, but their careless confidenc?
was their undoing. Word was brought in that a party
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
of English was close at hand and in the defenceless state
of the inhabitants, the greater part of the men of military
age having been killed at Flodden and the rest scattered,
naturally great alarm was felt. They reckoned without
the fighting spirit of their sons of tender years, however.
A considerable number of these gathered together, found
their way at the midnight hour to the ravine, and, no
sentinels having been thrown out, fell upon and surprised
the sleeping English and slaughtered them to the last
man. The authenticity of this story is vouched for by emi-
nent Scottish historians. It seems a barbarous act to us
now, but it was no worse, if as bad, as many of the in-
humanities practised in the Great War.
Our sketch's subject, however, had none of those mili-
tant qualities that made the men of Hawick feared in the
days of Flodden. A more peaceable or mild a mannered
man it would be hard to conceive of and his kindness, more
particularly to dumb animals, was the quality by which
he is best remembered. In early life Mr. Brown was a
shepherd, and the contemplative nature of this em.ploy-
ment was favorable to the poetic instinct, with which he
was gifted in no mean degree. In later years his im-
provisations in verse, upon local events on the Lake Shore
Line, were by many considered as worthy of a wider field
and a larger audience. He was born in 1809 and came
to Canada in 1842. He settled at first in Gait, and as
he had the best education afforded by the common schools
in his native shire he was drafted into the service of
school teaching there, but only for one year. In 1843 he
journeyed up the Garafraxa road to Owen Sound, then a
hamlet of seven or eight houses. In the allotment of
Crown Lands he was given Lot 40 on the Lake Shore, close
to Doctor Lang's ; the two formed a close friendship which
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
closed only with the death of the last named. Like many
of his Scottish neighbors, he had a penchant for garden-
ing and fruit raising, and his orchard, raised from the
appleseed, was the first and one of the finest on the Lake
Shore. It was also, in its prime, the objective of many
a gang of young marauders, bent on apple stealing. Marry-
ing after forty years of age, Mr. Brown still had a family
of twelve children, most of whom yet survive as active
and useful members of society. For several years after
coming to the locality he rented what was afterwards
known as the Keefer farm, about one mile below Annan
and, like many of his neighbors in that early day, could
relate stories of the vicissitudes of pioneering that have
unfortunately passed into oblivion. He died in 1892, while
in his eighty-third year, and interment was made at An-
nan.
ANDREW SIBBALD
Andrew Sibbald was born in Selkirk-shire in 1816,
just a few miles from Hawick, which is across the county
line in Roxburgh-shire. In early life he was a ploughman
In the primitive agriculture of that time, as we now con-
sider it, a ploughman was reckoned the highest type of
agricultural laborer, and Mr. Sibbald was an expert in his
line. He would have learned blacksmithing, but black-
smith apprentices had to serve seven years at the trade
and without a cent of wages in those days. He came to
Canada in 1845 and settled first at Gait, where he worked
for a Mr. Thomson. The trip was made in a sailing ves-
sel, the voyage lasting six weeks. In 1849 he came to
the Lake Shore Line district and settled upon Lot 25, Con-
cession 6. Mr, Sibbald was always known as a tremen-
dously hard worker and he found ample scope for his en-
ergy here. The farm was all virgin timber. After
__20(>—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
working there for some time a surveyor happened along
one day, stopped for conversation, became interested, and
finally consulted a map. He then told Mr. Sibbald he
was clearing land on the next lot, and that gentleman was
mortified to discover he had lost the labor of clearing six
acres not his own. He shared all those privations the
pioneers accepted so cheerfully as inseperable from their
lot and on one occasion walked all the way to Durham for
some flour. But steady industry always has its own re-
ward. In 1866 he had so far improved his condition as
to be able to take a trip back to his birthplace in Scotland,
having for company Mr. Gideon Harkness and Mrs. David
Armstrong. A sentimental interest may have been re-
sponsible for the journey, but he returned to Canada more
than ever satisfied he lived there. He was a most suc-
cessful farmer and took an active and leading interest in
the fall fairs of the township and county. He was also
instrumental in organizing the Sydenham Mutual Fire In-
surance Company and was one of its first directors. As
illustrating the scarcity of cash in the early times, he
used to tell how he realized the sum of $1.50 from the
sale of a fancy vest brought from Scotland, to Andrew
Biggar, and this was the only ready money he ever re-
ceived in the first three years after coming to Annan. He
died in 1886 at Annan, in his 70th year, and is buried
there. He was an upright and conscientious man whose
private life was always most exemplary, and his family,
one of the most widely known in Sydenham, all followed
faithfully in his footsteps.
THOMAS RUTHERFORD
Thomas Rutherford was born in 1812, at Ancrum,
Roxburghshire, and emigrated from Scotland to Canada
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
in 1832. In his early years he was a gardener on the
estate of Sir William Scott, which occupation his father
had followed before him and for the same master. Mr.
Rutherford had rather a distinguished connection, being
a second cousin to Scotland's greatest, national figure of
the time, Sir Walter Scott. On more than one occasion,
as a boy, he had opened the gate for him when Sir Walter
was taking his daily exercise of horse-back riding. He
described his kinsman as a rather severe looking gentle-
man, and as having a due sense of his own dignity. After
coming to Canada he first settled at Gait and engaged in
the butchering business. All his life he retained a vivid
impression of the outbreak of cholera there, mentioned
in a previous chapter, and of his helping to bury some
of the unfortunate victims. He came to the future Owen
Sound late in 1840, having been engaged by John Telfer
as purveyor of the government stores furnished him as
supplies for the first settlers, until they could get a start
and raise crops of their own. These stores had to be
paid for by the settlers of course, and thereby hangs
a rather amusing story.
Among the arrivals in quest of provisions, one day
appeared a number of Indians, only a few of whom could
speak English, and that very imperfectly. In their bro-
ken lingo, eked out by signs, they managed to make Mr.
Rutherford understand the kind and quantity of the
stores they needed, but when the time came for payment
they showed no desire to pay at all and grabbed up their
packages with the intention of decamping. This roused
the ire of the storekeeper. He was a man of powerful
physique — not very tall, but heavily limbed, and strong
enough to handle three or four of the Indians in a rough
and tumble fight. He launched a blow at the jaw of the
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
leader of the party which landed safely and then, even before
he had time to time to hit the floor, grasped him by the
throat and backed him out of the door of the storehouse
on the run. A few feet from the doorway lay a log; the
Indian in his involuntary flight backward tripped over it
and lay like a dead man. In fact, he imitated the 'possum
so well Mr. Rutherford was deceived as to how badly he
had hurt the redskin. The other Indians were alarmed
and made signs to their white brother the seemingly dead
man should be buried where he lay. Whether he saw th«j
chance for a joke, or was seriously alarmed, is not clear.
But in the excitement of the moment he ran into the
storehouse, picked up a shovel and, returning with it.
threw a shovelful of dirt on the prostrate form. The
Indian rose hastily with a yell, bounded down to the
Sydenham river distant only a few yards and, plunging
in, swam across it on the double-quick. That lesson last-
ed the Indians for all time.
Shortly after this incident Mr. Rutherford engaged
in hotel keeping on what was then Union Street, and the
hostelry he kept and the hospitality he dispensed were
long remembered by arrivals among the pioneers at the
growing village, who made it a sort of rendezvous. In
1845 he went with William Sibbald to Elora, to attend a
sale of Crown Lands, and each bought the lot they after-
wards lived on, Mr. Rutherford's being Lot 35, Concesison
A of Sydenham and Mr. Sibbald's the lot next it on the
south-east. The price paid by Mr. Rutherford was forty-
five pounds for the lot of one hundred acres. This farm
has ever since been in possession of the Rutherford family ;
Mr. Rutherford felled the first tree ever chopped on it
when he moved in and took possession.
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From the start he v.-as closely identified with the
various movements tending to advance the best interests
of Leith and vicinity, and from his previous business con-
nections in Owen Sound was for many years one of the
best known and highly respected residents in the whole
district. Although in early life a robust man, his health
about ten years before his death became impaired, and
two trips were taken to Scotland in the hopes that the
change of climate and scenes of his boyhood would restore
it. These were ineffectual however, and he died in March,
1879, at the comparatively early age of sixty-seven years.
He was buried at Leith in the Presbyterian cemetery, of
which church he had been a most consistent member and
supporter.
While he made no pretensions to either brilliant gifts
or accomplishments, Mr. Rutherford was a man of remark-
ably sound judgment and level headed Scottish sagacity.
His native shrewdness and perspicacity not only won for
himself a comfortable independence in material things, but
made him a helpful confidante and adviser to all who
sought his counsel in the hour of business perplexity. He
never forgot his duties as a neighbor or a citizen and al-
ways zealously discharged them. A grandson, Major
Thomas Rutherford, served his country with bravery and
distinction on the European battlefields of the Great
War.
THOMAS LUNN
Thomas Lunn was born at Lilliesleaf, Roxburghshire,
in 1799. His father was a farmer on the estate of Sir
John Riddell, and the education he gave his son must have
been a good one, if we may judge from the use he made of
it after coming to Canada. Not much is known of his
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
early life, which is regrettable as we would find that part
of it highly interesting. He engaged in business in Ha-
wick and seems to have succeeded fairly well. He was
married before coming to Canada to a Miss Usher, of
Edinburgh. The name of Usher is a familiar one to
many Canadians, although the variety of bottled products
carrying the label on which the name appears is not as
popular as it once was in Canada, while in the United
States it has suffered almost total eclipse. The Usher
family was, at that time, one of the wealthiest in Edin-
burgh, and her parents considered that their daughter
had married beneath her station. No actual estrange-
ment followed, but their treatment of the young couple
was never afterwards marked by an excess of cordiality.
In 1812 Mr. Lunn, then forty-three years of age, sold
out his business and with his wife came to Canada. They
were among the very first settlers on Concession A of
Sydenham; there is no record at any rate of anyone be-
ing there before them. He settled on Lot 29, in 1843,
on which as yet not a tree had been profaned by the axe.
The change from the most fashionable residential quar-
ter of Edinburgh to a log shanty in the backwoods of
Canada must have been, for Mrs. Lunn, something in-
describable. Her husband imm.ediately began clearing
the farm, which is about a mile north-east of Leith. At
time of writing it is owned by Mr. Hugh McKay, one of
Sydenham's most prosperous farmers. In 1843 it was
one hundred and twenty acres of solid bush — beech, maple,
birch, ash, hemlock, elm, cedar and tamarack. Were the
same timber standing there today it would probably sell
for $20,000. A description of the first log shanty erected
by Mr. Lunn was lately given us, as well as some faint
idea of what the farm looked like after he had been on
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
it for a few years, but its appearance when he moved in
must have been something such as we of this day and age
cannot adequately visualize at all. The harbor down at the
waterfront soon came to be known as Lunn's Landing.
There were no roads anywhere and Mr. Lunn brought
his supplies down to this harbor from the straggling ham-
let at the head of the Sound by boat. The Lake Shore
Line was shortly afterwards opened, but at first the road
was little better than a eowpath through the woods.
Mrs. Lunn was sincerely devoted to her husband, or
the change would have been insupportable. She never
mastered the mysteries of backwoods housekeeping, and
the voracious appetites of the neighbors who gathered at
Mr. Lunn's logging bees struck her with horror. One day
the wife of one of these neighbors called in and found her
surveying a devastated dinner table with a helpless air.
"Oh! Its thae loggers, ye ken", she replied, upon tho
neighbor enquiring what was the matter — "they eat lika
deevils !"
Leith was not settled until three years after Mr.
Lunn's arrival, and such social life as there was, was found
on the Lake Shore Line. He was of tlie first to sug-
gest the holding of religious services in the neighborhood
there, reference to which has been previously made, and
also one of the first to take a leading part in them, until
a regular ministerial supply could be obtained. Accord-
'ng to the tenants who followed him on the farm, after
his departure in 1852, he had cleared about thirty acres
before that time. It was sold by him in 1860 for about
$2,500., and here the author first saw the light of day
about fourteen years after that date.
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A FEW OF THE FIRST
Mr. Lunn moved into Owen Sound in 1852. He had
previously been a member of the first Provisional County
CoaRcil and on April 15th, 1852, by appointment of the
Earl of Elgin, then Governor General of Upper and Lower
Canada, he was made Chairman of the building committee
of the jail and courthouse, the erection of which were
necessary before Grey could be formally separated from
Wellington. These buildings were finished in 1853 and
Owen Sound then became the County Town of the new
County. Mr. Lunn was appointed its first Registrar, an
office he held until his death. The emoluments of the
office were at this time very generous as land speculation
was brisk, and the Registrar paid on the fee system.
In 1862 he was elected Mayor of the town, an office he
held for two terms. The duties of both offices were
discharged carefully and conscientiously.
There are few people now living who remember him
while he lived at Leith, but tliose who describe him
as a shrewd yet kindly man, who won the respect of
everybody by his honesty and fair dealing. After his
removal to Owen Sound he accumulated considerable means
and died a comparatively wealthy man. Division Street
Church owed its origin chiefly to him and for many years
he was Chairman of the Presbyterian congregation there.
He was for several years one of its elders, and would have
conMnued so until his death had he not resigned and ever
after^'ards declined re-election. While holding the office
of Registrar he was of course debarred from taking any
part in politics, although his sympathies were strongly
with the Reform party. In 1872 he visited Scotland and
sav/ for the last time the place of his birth. The closest
companion of his later years was the late Robert Paterson,
the two being almost inseperable. His wife predeceased
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
him by several years, having been held in as high esteem
as her husband. In the spring of 1875 his health began
to fail, and he died on the 5th of November of that year
at seventy six years of age. With his wife he is buried
in Greenwood Cemetery at Owen Sound.
ROBERT GRIERSON
The name of Grierspn is a familiar one to all students
of Scottish history. The most famous — or rather, no-
torious— among those bearing the name was undoubtedly
the persecutor of the faithful in the Killing Time that
followed the declaration of the Solemn League and Coven-
ant, Grierson of Lag. Next to John Graham of Claver-
house, "the handsomest and wickedest man of his time"
as he has been described, Grierson of Lag was the most
relentless persecutor of the Convenanters. It was well
said of him that his very ni^me was infamy.
Had Robert Grierson lived in the days of the Coven-
anters he would have been found among those who suf-
fered persecution for conscience sake. His uncompromis-
ing Presbyterianism admits of no other conclusion, as
those who remember him will testify.
He was born in 1810, in Roxburghshire, his father's
estate being known as Effledge Farm, and this name, fol-
lowing a Scottish custom, Mr. Grierson bestowed upon the
farm he settled on near Leith. None of the facts in his
early life are known to us, nor do we know the year in
which he came to Canada. The family of which he was
a member were familiarly known in their native shire
by their spare, tall stature and an erect military bearing —
in fact it was frequently said of them that they should
all have been soldiers. He had a brother who was one
—214—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
of the finest athletes in Scotland and a famous runner.
In middle life Robert had the same cast of countenance
and features as the Duke of Wellington and looked re-
markably like the portraits of the Iron Duke.
Mr. Grierson was educated for a school teacher and
after coming to Canada taught for a short time at Glen-
morris, near Gait. He came to Sydenham in 1845 and
settled on Lot 25, Concession A, at present owned by Wal-
ter Veitch, It is said that the first barn raising ever
held in Sydenham took place on the adjoining lot, No. 26,
and that through some horrible blunder there was no
whiskey at it! Such a calamity would not soon be for-
gotten. Mr. Grierson saw pioneering in its most primi-
tive guise. The Toronto Globe was founded in 1844 and
many of the Reformers of Sydenham, fathers of future
good Grits, immediately subscribed for it. Thomas Lunn.
who had the previous year settled on Lot 29, used to bring
the Globe from Owen Sound out for his neighbors and it
was distributed from his log shanty, distant about a mile
from Mr. Grierson's, to all those in the locality who had
subscribed. Those who went after the paper followed
a blazed trail through the trackless bush between the two
shanties, being careful never to leave one blazed tree un-
til they could see the blaze on the next one. One can
imagine how such a paper would be treasured. Next to
the Montreal Witness, the Globe was the first newspaper
to make its appearance in Sydenham.
In 1851 he married Janet Usher, a niece of Thomas
Lunn's, and in 1854 moved up into the village. He was
Leith's first school teacher, as he has been previously re-
corded, and always took a deep interest in the affairs of
the Presbyterian congregation, of which he was for many
years an elder. It may be said of him as it was said of
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Barnabas "He was a good man"; a warm heart lay be-
hind his grave demeanor. A domestic affliction which
overshadowed his whole life after coming to Leith was
borne with the most exemplary patience and cheerfulness.
He died in 1892 while in his eighty-third year and is buried
at Leith.
This sketch will be pardoned for its brevity and
dearth of details when it is knov/n that Mr. Grierson died
childless. It will not fail in its purpose however if it serves
in a measure to perpetuate the memory of a man faith-
ful and true, an upright, conscientious and honorable citi-
zen and one of the very earliest in that brave band of set-
tlers in North Sydenham of whom it may well be said that
in honoring them we honor ourselves as well.
WILLIAM TELFORD
As Mr. Telford's activities have been dealt with ra-
ther extensively in another part of this volume, this no-
tice will be made as brief as possible.
William Pattison Telford was born at Bells, England,
in June 1797, of Scottish parents. His father, William
Telford, was a shepherd, and was born in 1758, living to
the advanced age of ninety five years. The family crossed
the border into Roxburghshire some time in the end of
the eighteenth century and lived in various parts of that
county, finally settling at Castleton, or Copeshaw Home.
Mr. Telford attended lectures in Edinburgh and qualified
as a school teacher. He developed a fine faculty as a
musician and became band leader in Castleton, where he
also taught school. In October, 1835, he married Eliza-
beth Murray, and continued teaching in Castleton until
1840. In that year he emigrated to Canada, with his
—216—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
wife and three children, landing at New York and coming
to Gait via Albany and Buffalo. He engaged in his pre-
vious occupation and taught school in Gait and vicinity
for about eight years. He also worked at house painting,
gun repairing and woodwork; in fact his multifarious la-
bors seem to have extended to almost every branch of
mechanics. He was requisitioned to shape tombstones and
paint the inscriptions upon them, draught plans for build-
ings, make spinning wlieels and reels, and as a flautist
played for all sorts of functions, grave and gay. An ar-
dent fisherman, one of his reasons for coming to Canada
was the fact that the sport with rod and line was sadly
circumscribed in Scotland, and he hoped to find freer
play for his proclivities in that direction here. In 1848,
as has been noted, he came to the Lake Shore Line from
Gait, and became teacher in the Annan school. Here his
energies were taxed in all directions and he was possibly
the busiest man in the whole locality. His home became
famous for a free and easy hospitality and a camaraderie
such as we know nothing about in these degenerate times.
The neighbors w^ere fond of gathering for a social crack
and none was sent away. This happy custom prevailed
everywhere, as is the rule in new settlements. As they
grow older and ineciualities creep in, people become more
precise and formal, and the ultimate result is not a happy
one. Mr. Telford suffered a sort of nervous breakdown
in 1856 and retired from school teaching, never enjoying
really good health afterwards. But body and mind re-
mained active. There was hardly a family in the neigh-
borhood but boasted of some household ornament or use-
ful piece of furniture made by him. His industry, judged
from the works of his hands he left behind him, must
have been prodigious. He took but small interest in
public affairs although his literarj' taste was good. He
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
had a large family, thirteen in all, but of these five died
in infancy or in the very earliest years. For the last
five years of his life he was bedridden the most of the
time and died in March, 1879. His was preeminently a
life of practical usefulness and if his temper was irascible
and uncertain at times, it was easily forgiven by people
upon whom he had bestowed so many kindnesses. He
was survived by his wife for twenty two years. Both are
buried at Annan.
JAMES GIBSON
It was our original intention to limit these sketches
to men who arrived in Sydenham prior to 1850. An ex-
ception must be made in the present case, however.
James Gibson was born in Carstairs, Lanai-kshire,
within a few miles of Glasgow, in 1805. He received
his early education in the latter city and learned his trade
of cabinet making there also and later became a fully
qualified architect. He witnessed the first developments
of steamboating on the Clyde, that classic river destined
in later times to become the seat of the greatest steel
shipbuilding industry in the world. Shortly after his
marriage in Scotland he determined to come to Canada.
He arrived in Toronto in 1841 and engaged in house build-
ing and general architecture there.
Had Mr. Gibson remained in Toronto he would have,
in time, accumulated considerable wealth, as before leav-
ing he owned five residences in what is now the heart of
the city. In 1852, however, he came up to Sydenham
with his wife and four young sons. He settled on a farm
five miles northeast of Leith, on Concession A, having
for neighbors a settlement of Scottish Highlanders who
—218—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
had taken up land in what was generally known as "the
Swamp." These Highlanders were almost all of three
families, the MacLeods, the Camerons and the MacMillans,
and they retained in a marked degree all the charac-
teristics for which the Highland clans are famous. The
Queen's English was a foreign tongue among them. They
made their living by fishing and shingle making, with a.
httle farming thrown in for good measure.
Mr. Gibson's farm was an isolated one, and it was seven
years after their coming that his wufe first saw Owen
Sound. In time the farm of two hundred acres was
cleared and a large stone house was built in the late six-
ties. From this home there afterwards radiated a true
hearted hospitality, which they who once experienced
its kindness never aftenvards forgot. The hardships of
pioneering had been severe but honest labor had met with
its earned reward. None but a hardy Scottish Lowlander
could have achieved success under such difficult circum-
stances, which only the most tenacious courage could over-
come.
Mr. Gibson had deep rehgious principles and from the
very beginning showed the greatest interest in all re-
ligious movements in the neighborhood. He was one of
the leaders in the organization of the Presbyterian con-
gregation at Leith and in the building of the church there
in 1865. This church he attended regularly, summer and
winter, although distant from it five miles, until the in-
firmities of advancing age made such attendance impos-
sible. He was for more than thirty years one of its most
influential elders and as a member of Session his opinions
were always accorded the utmost respect. He had a florid
voice of great purity and delighted in the service of praise,
—219—
15
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
and in the songs of the land of his nativity. He had many
favorite songs that betokened his fine musical taste, his
prime favorite of all, however, being Tannahill's match-
less ballad upon the return of Spring, "Gloomy Winter's
Noo Awa". In his younger years a splendid performer
on the violin, he later mastered the art of making the
instrument itself, and found great pleasure in their con-
struction. His natural taste in music and mechanics
found its best expression in this congenial occupation.
Mr. Gibson is best described, in point of character, as
the finest type of Scottish gentleman of the old school.
He had an unaffected urbanity and courtesy of manner
that nothing seemed to disturb; every word and every
action while in contact with his fellow men bespoke his
innate and superior breeding. As one of his illustrious
countrymen said of a friend and patron, so it might be
well said of him, that "he was a gentleman who received
the patent for his honors immediately from Almighty
God." It is not given to many men to make friends as
he made them, intuitively and without effort. He reach-
ed the ripe old age of eighty-nine years and died as he
had lived, at peace with all men. Of his large family,
truly one of North Sydenham's first families, only one re-
mains in the vicinity, in the person of jMrs. Jean Ca-
meron, at Leith. He was buried at Leith and a suitable
monument now marks the last resting place of an orna-
ment of his species and what has truly been called the
noblest work of God — an honest man.
WILLIAM LANG, M. D.
Hamilton, Lanarkshire, in this day and time a thriv-
ing city, eleven miles from Glasgow, was the birthplace
—220—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
of William Lang, in August, 1796. He received his early
education there and adopted the medical profession for
a pursuit in life. He graduated from the medical de-
partments of London and Edinburgh Universities with
high honors in both, and the list of degrees conferred upon
him by these seats of learning, as attested by the monu-
ment erected to his memory, is a long and impressive one.
He specialized in surgery and enlisted on a man-of-war in
the Royal Navy in this capacity. Mr. Lang was a skilled
equestrian and a story is still told of how, when at Malta
with the Mediterranean squadron, he rode up the steps
of a temple and on into the building to win a wager.
Quitting the navy he married Susan Burnie, and the two
came to Canada in 1827, with their two sons, William
and James. He settled in Toronto and in connection with
his medical practise carried on a drug store there.
Shortly after the first settlement at the head of
Owen Sound he came to the new community as its first
doctor, having been offered special inducements by inter-
ested parties to do so. His able x;olleague. Doctor Man-
ley, came shortly afterwards. Dr. Lang settled on Crown
Land grant. Lot Number 42, on Concession B, Sydenham,
and this property is still in possession of his grandchildren.
He speedily became known to almost every settler in the
township, as doctors were a stern necessity at unforeseen
times with the pioneers. The precise date of Doctor
Lang's coming is not known at present, but it was two
or three years prior to 1844. Some future historian will
unearth the facts. A hundred interesting anecdotes of
his practise in the earliest days could be naiTated, did
space permit. After his neighbor, William Brown, he
was the first to plant an orchard on the Lake Shore Line,
although both gentlemen were laughed at for their pains
221
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
and assured that fruit would never be successfully grown
here. Gardening and fruit growing were favorite re-
creations in his long life. When he first settled on the
Lake Shore roads were still of the future, and the path
to his log house from the rude hamlet of Sydenham was
a blazed trail through the woods. His third son, George,
joined the rush to the goldfields of California in 1850,
and shortly afterwards died there.
Always an enthusiastic Mason, the Doctor stood high
in the councils of early Masonry in Owen Sound. His
practise, of course, was large, but hardly a lucrative one.
Probably no man in Sydenham ever did as much work, or
so much of it gratuitously. While a highly skilled prac-
titioner, more particularly in surgery, he was notoriously
a poor collector, and, where his patients were in straiten-
ed circumstances, he often never presented a bill. His
belligerent personal appearance and a lurid flow of langu-
age, more particularly when he found his professional in-
structions had been neglected, were belied by hi.s large
generosity and forgetfulness of self and his own conveni-
ence and comfort.
In spite of tlie hardships of pioneer life, and nany of
them make more interesting reading now than their rea-
lization did then, Doctor Lang raised his family of nine
sons and two daughters on the old homestead. His son
William was a successful farmer and shrewd man of busi-
ness, who in later years served the township as Reeve
for upwards of twenty years. The untimely death of
Burnie. the second youngest son, in 1878, as the result of
being thrown from a buggy, is still remembered by our
older jieople.
—222—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
He died in November, 1868, in his seventy third year,
and was survived by his wife for tvv-enty-eight years. Tliey,
with their whole family excepting their son George, found
interment in the Leith cemetery. The eldest son, Wil-
liam, outhved all his brothers and sisters, dying in 1912
while in his eighty-sixth year. On the roll of Sydenham's
pioneers no name stands higher than that of Lang.
ROBERT ELLIOTT
In the year 1810, Robert Elliot was born on the banks
of the Yarrow, near Ettrick, in Dumfries-shire. In his
youth he was a retainer on the estate of the Duke of
Buccleugh, at that time one of the most wealthy and
powerful of the Scottish Lowland's titled ai'istocracy —
"the bauld Buccleugh" as Sir Walter Scott called him. He
landed in Canada in 1837, while it was in the throes of
the MacKenzie rebillion and sojourned in Gait until 1843.
He then joined the hegira making its way up the new
Garafraxa Road to the village of Sydenham, and settled
on the Lake Shore Line on a Crown Land grant of fifty
acres which he at once started to clear. He was thus
among the very earliest settlers in the district, and in
after years had many an interesting story to tell of the
novel experiences of that time. Here his family of seven
sons were born, six of whom arrived at man's estate. The
second youngest of these sons, James, after serving his
apprenticeship to the machinists' trade in Owen Sound,
went to New York State and achieved considerable suc-
cess there as an erecting engineer, having charge of the
installation of the power plant at the Columbian Exposi-
tion in Chicago, 1893. He died a few years later and
was brought home for burial.
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENtL\M
Mr. Elliott never farmed very extensively but his
methods were the very best. Weeds were an abomina-
tion he could never tolerate, and his farm was known as
the cleanest in the township. He never evinced much
interest in public affairs nor aspired to an elective office,
but he had a kind heart and a genial manner that made
him prized as a neighbor and a friend. From a track-
less forest he saw Sydenham blossom and burgeon into
one of Grey's first townships and in the transformation
had the satisfaction of knowing he had borne a worthy
part. He died on the old homestead where he had lived
for fifty one years, in 1894, and while in his eighty-fourth
year. With many another sturdy pioneer he rests in
Annan cemtery, by the side of his wife.
WILLIAM JOHNSTONE
Away back in the sixteenth century a song was sung
on the Scottish Border, one verse running about as follows :
Armstrongs and Elliots,
Johnstones and Turnbulls
Nixons and Croziers,
Raid thieves a'.
These famous families were among the foremost of
the Border reivers, and it is not unlikely that the subject
of this sketch had in that distant day as an ancestor some
illustrious scion of the clan Johnstone who, on more thsn
one occasion, surrounded by his marauding kinsmen, rode
bravdy down through Annandale and the Debateable Land
and on into Northumberland to harry the hated English,
drive off their cattle, and take back into Scotland as le-
gitimate spoil everything not too hot or too heavy to carry.
—224—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
A story is told of the leader of one of these reivintc ox-
peditions who, passing a group of fodder stacks on his
retreat cack to Scotland and safety, exclaimed covetou.^ly
— "Ay! if ye each had four legs in iindei ye, ye wudna
stand there lang!"
The name of Johnstone stands high m history. W ei-e
a poll taken, it would probably show that Tiiore inus.:rious
men have borne that name than any othe ' in the English
language.
One of them claims our attention al. i'resent. William
Johnstone was born near the village of Ani;an, in Rox-
burghshire, in 1814. His people were fairly well to do
a ad early ii ii^c the medical profess^.on marked him for
her own. He studied at the University of Edinburgh
and quali.^crl in medicine, but did not fiiiish his course
in surgery. Anaesthetics were then unknown and the
horrors of ihe operating table and disse^f'n^ room were
a little too '-strong for him. He emig-Titod to Canada in
1843 and was sixteen weeks on the voyage out. Contrary
winds drove the vessel hopelessly out its course, and the
captain at last found himself down on the west coast of
Afnca. Starvation stared the whole company, passen-
gers and crew, in the face, when America was reached. He
first settled at Smith Falls, taught school for four years
and married there. He came to the Lake Shore Line in
1847 and located about five and one half miles below
Annan. In time the locality was given his name, and
so was the post office established there by the postal au-
thorities. In 1863 he was active in organizing the Pres-
byterian congregation at Johnstone, and was one of its
first elders. During Mr. Hunter's ministry the first
church was built, Mr. Johnstone presenting the church site
—225—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
to the new congregation and his brother Robert, who had
settied on the adjoining farm, the ground for a cemetery.
On account of his early advantages in the way of training
and an education, he soon became one of the busiest and
most influential men in the township. He never prac-
tised medicine, but his offhand advice to his neighbors
in the time of their ailments saved many a doctor bill, a
service for which they were always grateful. He had
considerable legal lore at his command as well, and gave
many an opinion in such a respect that subsequently prov-
ed to be good in law.
Mr. Johnstone was often pressed by these neighbors
to stand for municipal honors, but this he resolutely de-
clined. In spite of his many activities he seems to have
been of a retiring disposition, and a man who disliked
publicity. In company with Cornelius Duggan of the
Irish Block, he took the first census in Sydenham. When
the Johnstone post office was opened he became its first
postmaster and continued so until his death. For twenty
six years he was assessor of the township, an office he
also held at the time of his death. These, with the duties
on his splendid farm he had cleared from the virgin forest,
were tasks more congenial to his temperament. Had he
remained in Scotland the ability at least was his to have
risen high in the ranks of any of the learned professions
he chose to adopt. The lure of a new land overpowered
such a consideration, however, and nobody ever heard
him regret his coming to it. Canada received many such
men at the time and their coming was an advantage to
the country, to themselves and to those they left, for it
relieved the congestion in population in Scotland and made
the gaining of a livelihood easier there.
In one respect he was truly a most fortunate man.
—226—
A FEW OF THE FIPwST
He had the happy faculty of making few or no enemies,
and at the same time a veritable host of friends. No man
in Sydenham was more universally respected for his ge-
nial quahties and thoroughly trustworthy character. Such
men have a wonderful influence for good in any commu-
nity, and his example was one that could always be fol-
lowed with safety. He died at his farm at Johnstone
in April, 1886, and is buried in the cemetery there. By
a liberal bequest found in the last will and testament of
one of his sons, since deceased, the Presbyterian congre-
gation at Johnstone were enabled to erect a comfortable
and commodious -church edifice of brick on the same site
as the first frame one, which stands as a durable and
praiseworthy memorial to the name of Johnstone.
HUGH REID
About one hundred years ago at time of writing, or
in June, 1824, to be precise, Hugh Reid was bora at Pais-
ley, Scotland. Before coming to Canada he was appren-
ticed in one of the wood working trades. There is no
record of the date of his emigration, but he must have
come out while a very young man, for he had been at
Smith's Falls for several years and was married there
before he came to the Lake Shore Line in 1846, when only
twenty two years of age. His wife was also born in Scot-
land's city of shawls. Mr. Reid was the first precentor
in the Annan congregation, a fact that has been noticed
elsewhere, and was all his life an enthusiastic admirer of
music and musicians. He soon became prominent in local
politics and for about ten years was a councillor in Syden-
ham. From this he was raised to the reeveship, and in
1873 was elected Warden of Grey County, taking office
simultaneously with S. J. Parker who was in that year
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REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
first elected to the treasurership of the County. He dis-
charged the duties of these offices faithfully, and as his
public record was such as to inspire the utmost confidence he
was later elected treasurer of Sydenham township and of
its Agricultural Society as well. On two occasions he
acted as county valuator, and was for many years secre-
tary of the Sydenham Mutual Fire Insurance Company.
At the time of his death he was president of the Telford
and Company brokerage firm. All these public duties
make his life a busy one and brought him in contact with
so many kinds and conditions of men that his face was
one of the best known in Sydenham and Owen Sound.
Like many of his Protestant countrymen he was an en-
thusiastic Mason, and rose to some of the highest honors
in local ranks of the craft.
He was a man wlio loved company, and the pleasures
of social life were to him a necessity. It would be use-
less to say he had no enemies, as no man who has held
public office as long as he did and mingled in public
affairs so extensively fails in accumulating at least a few
of them, but none of his enemies could lay his finger on
a solitary dishonorable or dishonest act committed by Hugh
Reld. No man on the Lake Shore Line was so much in the
public eye or was so freely criticized, but he was happily
not of a sensitive disposition, nor did he carry a grudge.
It was noticeable, too, that many of his warmest critics
were his heartiest supporters on election day, a fact that
is only accounted for by a strange perversity in the Scot-
tish character, which neither they nor any one else can
explain. In his younger years he was said to have been
a very handsome man, with regular features, and to the
last he preserved a serious and thoughtful cast of coun
entance not generally found in men who enjoy social inter-
—228—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
course as he did. He was a great admirer of his native
country, its literature, music and institutions, but, above
all, its people. This was evidenced by his trips back to
the Old Land; his portrait which appears on another page
is by a Glasgow photographer. Among the last of the
earliest pioneers in North Sydenham to pass away, his
death was sincerely regretted by the host of friends of
his declining years. He is buried at Annan, having died
in May, 1905, in his eighty first year.
DAVID ARMSTRONG
Of the facts in connection with Mr. Armstrong's early
life very httle is known to us. The obituary notices which
have from time to time appeared in the public press on
this, as well as many another worthy subject, are reticent
on this point; evidently those who wrote them thought
they would be of very little interest to their readers. In
this we believe they were mistaken, for in the well known
words of the poet, "the child is father of the man," and
the characteristics we display in our youth are in most
cases reliable forecasts of our subsequent careers as men.
We do know of David Armstrong, however, that he was
born in Dumfries-shire in 1818, and that he came to the
Lake Shore Line in 1846, or when he was twenty seven
years of age. His brother Robert came about the same
time; in fast at one time the Armstrong family, of which
there were two separate and distinct branches, were the
most numerously represented of all the Scottish families
in that community, and a very worthy and eminently re-
spectable representation it was too.
Mr. Armstrong led what would be esteemed by some
an uneventful life, but, nevertheless, a busy and happy
—229—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
one. He had no taste for the doubtful sweets of public
life or elective office, and if he tasted none of their tri-
umps he was at the same time spared their disappoint-
ments and defeats. His interests were bound up in the
church, the school, his farm and his home, where his
family received a training which was afterwards reflected
in their lives as useful and honorable members of society.
His interest in religious and educational affairs and his
activities in connection with the Annan congregation and
the first school there, have already been noticed. These
were continued up until within a few years of his death.
He formed a wide connection of friends in both town and
country among both old and young, as he was a most com-
panionable man — one who made friends by showing him-
self friendly. In his early years in Scotland he had learn-
ed the trade of a carpenter and naturally was interested
in it all his life, but the life of a farmer with all its draw-
backs and disadvantages (and those who have followed
that occupation alone know what they are) he preferred
to that of a tradesman, as being more suited to his inde-
pendent temperament and his desire to be his own em-
ployer. This was one of the traits of character which,
in Mr. Armstrong's day and time, made the Scottish Low-
landers among the most successful agriculturists in Ca-
nada, and it was nowhere more apparent than on the Lake
Shore Line and Concession A. Backed up by energy,
thrift, and perserverance, it transformed the Lake Shore
Line in time from what was not the most promising of
agricultural districts into one of the gardens of Grey
County. It took hard work to bring about such a result
but of men sucli as David Armstrong and his kind it might
well be said that ''toil v/as their best repose," and the
green old age to which many of them lived proves that
—230—
A FEW OF THE FIRST
hard work, if it be not beyond one's strength, seldom in-
deed kills. It was a supreme source of satisfaction to
these pioneers to know that in a few years the land on
which they had settled was going to be their own, and
that they and their children would not be paying rackrent
forever and a day to some dissolute scion of the Scottish
landed aristocracy. It was this hope that nerved them
to endure the hardships and trials of pioneering, and, for
some of them at least, the heartache and indescribable
loneliness of homesickness, perhaps the hardest trial of
all. Mr. Armstrong was in the settlement at the very
beginning of things and saw and helped in its gradual
development. He could tell from his own experience how
with these trials were mingled some of the joys that make
life most worth living; the satisfaction that springs from
thrift and self denial, the joy of cheerfully lending a hand
to some less fortunate neighbor and, above all, the su-
preme enjoyment of a hearty hospitality which made every
man welcome at his neighbor's door and a part of the
household as long as he stayed inside of it. He died in
July, 1893, in his seventy sixth year, and is buried at An-
nan.
WALTER AITKEN
Like so many of his future neighbors on the Lake
Shore Line, Walter Aiken was born in Hawick, in the year
1812, the same year in which Great Britain and the United
States engaged in one of the silliest wars ever waged be-
tween two "civilized" nations, and Napoleon left the bones
of four hundred thousand Frenchmen to whiten the steppes
of Russia between Moscow and the Niemen on his disas-
trous retreat from the city that had been burnt about his
ears.
—231—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
Every neighborhood has its humorist — the man who
can turn the most serious situation in a joke, and excite
the risibilities of his neighbors at the most unexpected mo-
ment and in the most unexpected manner. In the langu-
age of the old school primer — "Watty was a sad wag."
Of Mr. Aitken's early career little is known to us.
However, this much is known, that he came to Canada
at about twenty seven years of age and was then a tall
young Scot, standing over six feet in height On the
sajTie ship with him were forty five otber emigrants from
Hawick to Canada, one of them being the lady Mr. Aitken
afterwaid made his wife. The story of his courtship, and
of his hope long deferred which happily won out at last,
would read like a tale of romance and we are only sorry
lack of space precludes its insertion here. He settled first
at Gait and came to the Lake Shore in 1847 and was shortly
afterwards happily married. His farm, situated about
a mile northeast of Annan, is still in the possession of a
daughter-in-law, Mrs. Margaret Aitken.
Mr. Aitken, or as he was more faniiliarly known,
"Watty" was a stranger to the ways of the bush. He
could swing a pick with the best of them, but the proper
use of an axe was a mystery. Two sons of a neighbor
were one day helping him at the chopping and the same
evening, when all three were sitting about the table, the
conversation turned upon what they would each choose
if they could have whatever they wanted. Watty re-
marked, looking at the two boys, "Callants, I want noth-
ing better for this world than to be able to chop like you
two." This little incident will serve to illustrate some
of the trials of the earliest Scottish settlers in learning
to chop. In due time, however, the farm was cleared.
—232—
A FEW OF THE FIPwST
Its most valuable feature now is an apple orchard, than
which there are few better in Grey County.
Mr. Aitken has been dead, at time of writing, these
twenty seven years, but some of his choicest stories and
wisest sayings are still current in his home neighborhood.
His humor was spontaneous, and sometimes highly effec-
tive in reviving the spirits of a gang of tired loggers, or
in enlivening proceedings at the social gatherings of the
early days whenever they gave symptoms of dragging.
In fact one sometimes wonders whether there was not
a streak of Irish hidden away somewhere in his mental
makeup. The most commendable part of his humor was
that nobody could ever complain of being made the butt
of it for a more kindly man, or one who was more consi-
derate of the feelings of others, never drew the breath of
life. He was never guilty of a faux pas, but seemed to know
intuitively when he was skating on thin ice and where
the danger signals were flying. His keenest witticisms
were delivered with such a preternaturally grave counten-
ance that one would suppose he were the chief mourner
at a funeral, instead of an inveterate fun maker who was
enjoying the joke fully as much or more than his listeners
were.
Aside from his joyous proclivities as a jokesmith, Mr.
Aitken was a citizen of exemplary character and the very
highest integrity. His goodwill toward all men betoken-
ed a conscience at ease with itself and the world at large.
His disposition seemed permeated with the milk of human
kindness, and he was an entire stranger to that spirit
which is eternally carping at and criticizing the weaknesses
of one's neighbors, which a great novelist once fittingly
described as only an unconscious admission of the fault
—233—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
finder's own inferiority. It will be long before we look
upon his like again and in this last respect if in no other
it would be well for the best of us if we were more like
him. He died in 1897, at the ripe age of eighty five
years, at peace with himself, his Maker, and the world
which was the poorer because of his passing.
JOHN HUTSON
The last of these sketches may appropriately be de-
voted to one of the earliest, if not the first actual settler
on the Lake Shore Line. As nearly as can be ascertained
John Hutson came there in 1841.
He settled upon the fifty acre Crown Land lot where
the Leith road intersects the Lake Shore Line, and on the
south-east side of the latter road. The south-west cor-
ner of this lot in time became the centre of the village
of Annan, or, as it was first known, the Leith Corner.
Mr. Hutson saw it develop from a tract of hardwood
bush to a village of four stores, two hotels, one school-
house, one public library, one Presbyterian church, a drill
hall, two blacksmith shops, one shoemaker's shop, one
harness maker's shop, one tailor shop, a manse and ten
other dAvelling houses. The learned professions were re-
presented by a Presbyterian minister and a physician.
He was a native of Dumfries-shire, as was also his
wife, and his occupation before coming out to Canada was
that of a shepherd. The duties of a shepherd were quite
distinct from those of the other hired men on the large
landed estates of Scotland. They had little experience
with hard labor but led a solitary life out on the hills, of-
—234—
PLATE III.
1. Andrew Sibbald. 2. Walter Aitken. o. William .loiinstono.
4. James Gibson. 5. Huj;h Reid. (». John Couper.
A FEW OF THE FIRST
ten out of sight of a human habitation and sometimes do-
ing the work of a drover for a day or two on an empty
stomach. Their position was no sinecure, as the respon-
sibility connected with the job was very great; the man
who performed his duties faithfully and won the name of
a good shepherd needed no other word of commendation
from anybody. One of Scotland's most famous poets,
James Hogg, the author of the Queen's Wake won the
sobriquet of "The Ettrick Shepherd."
They had, as a matter of necessity, to be regular and
temperate in their habits and in consequence lived fre-
quently to be old men, as they seldom suffered from the
infirmities superinduced by hard and exhausting labor.
In such a respect Mr. Hutson was a splendid specimen of
his class. Tall and well proportioned, even in his later
days he was as erect and straight-limbed as a Life Guards-
man, and before coming to Canada he was often inter-
viewed by recruiting sergeants of crack regiments of the
line and besought to take "the King's shilling" and en-
list with them. W^hen referring to these interviews he
would remark very modestly that he never would have
been of any service as a fighting man, and his acquain-
tances who knew of his kindhearted and unassuming dis-
position could never imagine him as "seeking the bubble
reputation in the cannon's mouth."
While serving as a shepherd it was part of his work
to attend to the slaughtering of the sheep, but he never
overcame his aversion to that part of his duties and after
settling on his little farm and doing the work of slaughter-
ing both sheep and swine for himself and his neighbors,
he nearly always contrived in some way to avoid the ac-
tual killing.
— 23.>-
16
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
For many years he, in common with all the early
settlers, had to put up with many hardships and incon-
veniences, these being aggravated by reason of his bache-
lorhood and the fact that he kept house for himself. Af-
ter about twenty years on the Lake Shore of the single
state he took unto himself a wife, and it goes without
saying that his last days were his best ones.
He died in 1889 while in his eighty-second year, leav-
ing his wife and family in a comfortable home and the
legatees of what in his lifetime had been his most highly
prized possession, a small but carefully selected library,
the favorite volumes among which were, we need scarcely
add, the Scottish poets.
-286—
CHAPTER XIII
CONCLUSION
"There is nothing new under the sun — there is noth-
ing said or written but what has been said or written be-
fore". So runs the old adage and it is a true one. The
reader who has had the patience to peruse this Httle vo-
lume thus far will, insofar as it at least is concerned, has-
ten to agree with this old saying, and he will wonder why
such a book ever came to be written. It is easy to write
the story of a successful man or a successful enterprise;
it is not so easy to write the story of a once prosperous
community which now only retains a shadow of its foi'mer
activity. "Ichabod ! Ichabod ! thy glory is departed." It
is said to be bad literary taste either to explain or apolo-
gize for what one has written, but in a narrative that
makes no pretentions at all to literary taste or expression
such a rule is easily broken.
It has had as its primary object, then, as stated in
a previous chapter, the preservation of the memory of a
few of the earliest pioneers in the author's native town-
ship and the recognition, in part at least, of the debt
owed them by their descendants. We would be the sor-
riest sort of ingrates were we not conscious of that debt,
and ingratitude is of all sins about the hardest to for-
give.
•'I have talked with many great men in my time" said
Abraham Lincoln shortly before his death, "and I have
found them much the same as ordinary men in almost
—237—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
everything." The time is coming when values will be
duly appraised, the wheat winnowed from the chaff, and
Canada will then discover that the greatest among her
sons are to be found among the pioneers, who were pre-
pared to make the sacrifices without which her truly won-
derful progress would never have been possible at all.
To quote, with the alteration of but a single word, a great
British poet, the hundreth anniversary of whose death
was so fittingly observed in recent months:
"What want these pioneers that conquerors have
But History's purchased page to call them great ?
A wider space, an ornamented grave ?
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full
as brave."
A secondary object has been the entering of
a plea for the conservation of our national resources, and
more particularly our forests. There is no country in the
world, except it be the United States, that offers such
frightful examples of the folly of waste as Canada does.
She has suffered for it already, and will suffer even more
in the future, if the warnings of reason and common sense
are disregarded. We and our fathers robbed Nature of
her forests and she in revenge robbed us of our streams,
or left them pale ghosts of their former selves. Part of
this was not waste of course. The forest had to be
cleared nefore we could find a habitation at all. But in
Sydenham a great area of land was denuded of timber
that could grow nothing else in its place, and this kind of
v;aste should never be suffered to happen again, neither
her ■ or in any place where it is in our power lo pr-='vent
it. At present there is only one country in the world
—238—
CONCLUSION
where the annual growth of timber exceeds the national
consumption, and that country is Russia. If that is one
of the curses of a communistic form of go /e nment we
should pray for a small portion of the curse. Above all,
the movement known as ''Save the Forests — Prevent
Fires", should receive the support of every good citizen
who has any regard for our posterity at all.
The third object may be very briefly told. It is best
expressed in a verse by Burns :
"Some write a neighbor's name to lash,
Some write (vain thought!) for needfu' cash,
Some write to court the country clash
And raise a din ;
For me, my aim I never fash.
I write for fun."
In short, it was written for the pleasure derived from
its writing. It takes considerable pleasure to offset the
prediction of a friend, and our own expectation, that its
circulation will not exceed eighty or one hundred copies.
The hyper-sensitive critic, should he ever pick it up,
will be horrified to discover a thousand violations of syn-
tax and every other conceivable rule of grammar in its
pages. He is welcome to whatever degree of satisfac-
tion he may extract from the fact. One cannot drive en-
gine lathes, planers and boring mills for thirty years and
then suddenly pick up a fountain pen and expect to drive
it in turn through several score pages of faultless diction.
One or two lessons have been learned in its writing,
however, which have made the experience gained worth
—239—
FwEMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
the labor. On is that a work of this kind should never
be attempted except by some one who has been an actual
participant in the events sought to be described. In pro-
ceeding with the work many difficulties were encountered
which had not been foreseen. In fact, at one time it
seemed the part of discretion to abandon the venture al-
together. As far as is known there is nobody now living
in North Sydenham who arrived there prior to 1848. The
memories of those who came to, or were born there, in the
following ten or fifteen years, are not now as good as
they have been and are not always reliable; this is par-
ticularly true in the matter of dates. Our first pioneers
have passed from the scene and with them they have
taken a vast fund of facts and reminiscences which would
have been of the keenest interest, if not of value, to the
present generation. As an old friend and neighbor re-
cently assured us, — "Son, you have started this thing
about ten or fifteen years too late."
Another thing we have learned, is the need in Syden-
ham township of a pioneers', or old settlers' association,
of some kind. Once an interest were thoroughly aroused
in such an object, the organization of such a society would
be a comparatively easy matter. It would then be found that
what involves great labor and more or less expense for
one. could easily and far more effectually be performed
by fifteen or twenty of its members; in brief, many hands
would make light work. The scanty reminiscences we
have collected here would be augmented to four or five-
fold their volume, and a survey of the whole township
would be compiled which would not bnly be intensely in-
teresting but of genuine historical appraisement. Our
own experience has been that very little in the way of re-
—240—
CONCLUSION
liable records is available, and only a minute portion of
even these have fallen into our hands. Such a society,
however, with its members working independently and at
their leisure, could gradually accumulate practically every
fact of importance in the history of the early settlement
of the township. (This suggestion is thrown out with
only a faint hope it will be acted upon.) Something in
the nature of a general reunion might be held in the sum-
mer months of each year, when the people of the entire
township would have the opportunity of getting acquaint-
ed with one another, and of getting acquainted, too, with
the earliest days of Sydenham's existence as a municipal-
ity. This commendable custom prevails in many of the
townships and counties of the States comprising the Ameri-
can Union, as the writer has had the opportunity of ob-
serving at first hand, and as a promotive of genuine pa-
triotism its effect can hardly be over-estimated. The
loyalty of a man who knows little or nothing of the his-
tory of his birthplace or his native country is a loyalty
of small real value, and one that can easily be imposed
upon. It lacks the first requisite of knowing what it is
loyal to, and what its possessor should be prepared to
make sacrifices for. Such a loyalty is satisfied with flag
waving, fireworks, and the singing of the national an-
them. In reality it is not loyalty at all, but a blind and
misguided jingoism. It is only when we become thor-
oughly conversant with the facts concerninp; the stiTiggles
by which constitutional government vras secured for us
and for our posterity, the shaping of our institutions in
the earliest times and their gradual evolution up until the
present moment, that we become capable of an intelligent
patriotism, which can give some reason for the faith that
is in it. Such a study is not long pursued until one be-
—241—
PwEMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
comes conscious of what we owe to those brave men who
first planted these institutions in the wilderness ; as the
past recedes and men and events begin to assume their
true perspective we see more and more clearly that
these were the real makers of Canada and the men whom,
as possessing- the true spirit of patriotism, it should be our
privilege and delight to honor. Their station in hfe
was a humble one, their daily toil was hard and their lot
obscure but the time has arrived when justice must be
done them and free acknowledgement made that these
men were greater than they themselves knw. It is al-
most certain that when Lincoln gave utterance to the ex-
pression quoted above, he was entirely unconscious that
the time would come when he would be regarded as the
greatest American of the nineteenth century, and one of
the four greatest men of his time. It has been well said
of moral greatness that it has too much simplicity, is too
unostentatious, too self-subsistent, and enters into others'
interests with too much heartiness, to live for an hour for
what the able yet self-seeking soldier or statesman al-
ways lives, to make himself the theme and gaze and won-
der of a dazzled nation. So it was with Lincoln and so,
too, with our pioneers. They builded better than they
knew, and since we have organizations for almost every
purpose under the sun, why should not Sydenham have
(»ne for the perpetuation of the remembrance of tiie early
days of the township and the men who first came to make
their homes there?
There are light and dark shades in every picture, and
no painting which is true to Hfe would be of much value
did the dark shades not appear. The honest reader will
object to the personal sketches appearing in the previous
—242—
CONCLUSION
chapter as being too much in the nature of obituary no-
tices. They extol, these readers will say, the virtues of
these men but are silent as to their faults. The
criticism is a just one ; it would be folly indeed to
claim these men did not have their full share of the frail-
ties and shortcomings inherent in human nature. Apart
entirely from the disputed question as to its inspiration,
the Old Testament will always stand as the most wonder-
ful book of its kind because of its absolute honesty. It
tells all and conceals nothing; in the modern sporting
phrase it plays no favorites. We know exactly the best
and the worst of the mighty men of old who flourished
in the times of which it is the chronicler; we know that
King David was guilty of crimes for which men are now
given life sentences in the penitentiary, and that Solomon,
for all his wisdom, died as the fool dieth. Coming down
to later times, we have in the New Testament the story
of the only perfect Man ever appearing in the world, and
His life was such a reproach to the hyprocrites around
Him that they took Him out on top of a mountain and
crucified Him between tv/o thieves. Pilate said he could
find no fault in him ; that was precisely what was the
matter. Men's very faults are often their preservation.
A perfect man, or even one who professed to be perfect
would be simply intolerable.
It is with nations as it often is with men — the greater
the nation the greater are its vices. The French are ac-
cused ,and rightly, of a cold, sneering cynicism, which
scoffs at all we deem sacred ; their birth rate is stationary
because home life is to them almost an unknown quantity,
particularly in their great cities. The Germans are ac-
cused, and rightly, of a heartless cruelty and callousness
to suffering that in time of war turns the sympathy of
—243—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
neutral nations against them, and which we can never con-
done, unless they chance to be fighting as our ally. The
hypocrisy of the English has passed into a proverb, and
historical instances of it are so numerous it is almost
incredible how foreign nations are still deceived by it.
The Americans, coming by this Anglo Saxon vice honestly
at least, have so crystallized and refined it that it de-
ceives even themselves — and of all forms of deceit self-
deception is the most dangerous. One fault they all have
in common. They never acknowledge their transgression
— their sin is never before them. The Frenchman pro-
tests that of all men he is the most truly religious and
has the deepest reverence for things sacred. The Ger-
man swears that he has been cruelly misrepresented by
his enemies, and that a babe in arms is not more tender
hearted or merciful than he. The Englishman solemnly
avows his disinterestedness and calls Heaven to witness the
honesty of his intentions, and the American goes him one
better and says that the honesty and simplicity of his
own nature are such that, in his dealings with other na-
tions, he is as defenceless as a lamb among ravening
wolves. And the cold fact still remains that, each with
its vice to the contrary notwithstanding, these four na-
tions have done more for civilization, projTrcss and en-
lightenment than all the rest of the world put together.
Man m-iist take his fellow man as he finds him, and not
as he would like to have him. It is a pretty poor sort
of patriotism, after all, which seeks to arrogate to itself
all the beneficent qualities of human nature and charge its
enemies up with all tlie bad ones;. "My country, right
or wrong" is neither the motto of a wise man or a truly
patriotic man. All the great nations have at some time
—244—
CONCLUSION
in their histoiy been wrong — sometimes desperately
wrong.
It was not entirely by accident that these worthy men,
the sketches of whose lives have been given, all belonged
to the same pohtical party, and the reader who is at all
familiar with the history of party politics in Sydenham
does not need to be told which one of the two great politi-
cal parties of fifty years ago in Canada it was. They
took their religion from the Bible and their politics from
the Toronto Globe. On their arrival in Canada they
gravitated to the Reform party as naturally as a duck to
water, and this will not surprise anyone who has studied
the trend of Scottish political thought in the last hundred
years. That trend has in that time always been strongly
toward an extreme liberalism, amounting almost to ra-
dicalism, until today we see Scotland practically in the
hands of the Labor party of Great Britain, which, how-
ever strenuously it may disavow revolutionaiy tendencies,
is entirely too radical to suit the great majority of the
titled aristocracy there. This brings us to a strange
anomaly in the Scottish character, which was vastly more
marked fifty and sixty years ago than today, however.
It brings us as well to the besetting vice of the Scottish
people, considered as a whole, and that the Scottish pio-
neers of North Sydenham were free from it it need hardly
be expected.
The largest and most important fact in the historv
of the Scottish people, since the time of the Protestant Re-
formation at least, has been the fact that with the greatest
liberality in politics they have united a narrow illiberality
in religion. It has colored their whole existence and,
as nothing happens by chance, there is an historical rea-
—245—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
son for it which has been clearly set forth by the eminent
English historian, Henry Thomas Buckle, in his History
of Civilization in England. Few things will repay the
impartial student more than an earnest perusal of the3
third volume of this remarkable work, even while he may
not agree at times with either its premises or conclusions.
Of course it will need no introducton to at least some of
our readers, and these will be the first to admit the au-
thor's cogency of reasoning and lucidity of style. It was
a Scottish poet who prayed,
"Oh wad some power the giftie gae us
To see oorsels as ithers see us."
and it will be of interest to Scottish readers and the Ca-
nadian descendants of our Scottish pioneers to see the
Scot of sixty five years ago as Buckle saw him. The
following extract is taken from the last chapter of the
History referred to above:
"Even in the capital of Scotland, in that centre of
intelligence which once boasted of being the modern
Athens, a whisper will quickly circulate that such an one
is to be avoided, for that he is a free thinker; as if free
thinking were a crime, or as if it were not better to be a
free thinker than a slavish thinker. In other parts, that
is, in Scotland generally, the state of things is far worse.
I speak not on vague rumor, but from what I know as
existing at the present time and for the accuracy of
which I vouch and hold myself responsible. I challenge
anyone to contradict my assertion when I say that, even
at this moment, nearly all over Scotland, the finger of
scorn is pointed at the man who in the exercise of his free
—246—
CONCLUSION
and inalienable right of free judgement refuses to acquiesce
in those religious notions and to practise those religious
customs which time, indeed, has consecrated, but many
of which are repulsive to the eye of reason, though to
all of them, however irrational they may be, the people
adhere with sullen and inflexible obstinacy. Knowing
that these words will be widely read and circulated in
Scotland, and averse as I am naturally to bringing on my-
self the hostility of a nation for whose many sterling
and valuable qualities I entertain sincere respect, I do,
nevertheless, deliberately affirm that in no civilized coun-
try is toleration so little understood and that in none is
the spirit of bigotry and of persecution so extensively dif-
fused. Nor can anyone wonder that such should be the
case who observes what is going on there. The churches
are crowded as they were in the Middle Ages with de-
vout and ignorant worshippers who flock together to lis-
ten to opinions of which the Middle Ages alone were
worthy. These opinions they treasure up, and when they
return to their homes or enter into the daily business of
life they put them in force. And the result is there runs
through the country a sour and fanatical spirit, an aver-
sion to innocent gaiety, a disposition to limit the enjoy-
ment of others, and a love of enquiring into the opinions
of others and of interfering witli them such as is hardly
anywhere else to be found ; while in the midst of this there
flourishes a creed gloomy and austere to the last degree,
a creed which is full of forebodings and threats and hor-
rors of every sort, and which rejoices in proclaiming to
mankind how wretched they are, how small a portion of
them can be saved, and what an overwhelming majority is
necessarily reserved for excrutiating, unspeakable and
eternal agony."
—247—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
This is Scotland as Buckle saw it sixty-five years ago.
It will be generally contended that the picture, even in
that time, was exaggerated. It was Edmund Burke who
said that you could not indict a nation. Yet this is pre-
cisely what the English historian has tried to do, and
while Buckle ehcited great admiration from his contem-
poraries because of his perspicacity and could probably
see farther into the intricacies of the human mind than
any of them, the indictment he attempted, in spite of
Burke's dictum, is entirely too sweeping. But that there
is a great deal of truth in it there is no use in attempting
to deny. He laid his finger on the besetting weakness
of a people whose views on every matter save religion are
as hberal as will be found anywhere, and entirely too liberal
for that class of hide-bound reactionaries who are born
into the world a half century behind their time and to
whom a new innovation is always a device of the devil.
The more thoughtful among the Scottish people know
that the accusation is a true one, although they may never
admit its truth, except when among themselves. There
are others among their countrymen, on the other hand,
who insist that toleration in religious matters is as second
nature to them, and one of their shining virtues. They
can see no blemish or defect in their national character,
or, if they can see it, think it is the part of patriotism
to conceal it.
This is certainly a very foolish spirit and one which,
when carried to the extreme, has caused a great deal of
harm in the world. It should never be forgotten that
birth is purely an accident, and something over which
none of us has any control. If a man had had a pre-
existence and had determined upon being born as one of
—248—
CONCLUSION
the Scottish people, then he might justly claim credit for
their many sterling qualities as being due to his own
wisdom in making such a choice. But, bom as he is,
it is surely foolishness for him to hope to escape censure
lor those defects which have justly been charged against
them.
There is no fault for which men have suffered more
than for this one of an exaggerated nationalism, and the
lesson of its dreadful consequences is lost, because the
evil is growing instead of abating. It presupposes the
fact that we were born as members of a nation which,
in some mysterious fashion, is more enlightened, brave
and generous than any other around it. When the Civil
War broke out in the United States, men were enlisted
by the thousand in the armies of the North for ninety
days, as it was confidently expected there the insurrection
would be crushed in that time. The South despised the
North and the North nourished a feeling of contemptuous
superiority toward the South. But the war steadily grew,
both in years and proportions, until the land was filled
with bloodshed and mourning and the hills of the South
were whitened by the bones of thousands in both armies
who had been taught the lesson, but taught it too late,
that their opponents were at least as brave as themselves.
The same thing happened in the Great War. We went
in with the confident expectation that inside of a year
Germany would be beaten into helpless submission, and
the Germans went in in the firm belief that inside two
months they would be dictating terms of peace in Paris.
The Germans have been frightfully disillusioned and we
have learned the truth of the Duke of Wellington's say-
ing, that the next saddest thing to a defeat is a victory.
—249—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
"War is always an aggravation — never a solution" said
Lord Beaconsfield. Was there ever any real reason
for believing while it was in progi'ess that the Great War was
any different from the wars that had preceded it? There
are men who have been born into the world with a love
of fighting for fighting's sake. They are like the cor-
sairs of the Mediterranean,
"That for itself could woo the approaching fight
And turn what some deem danger to delight,"
and such men are dangerous, even if their number is
small. The vast majority of men want to pursue their
way in peace and quietness and if left to themselves, and
undisturbed by the war-makers, would find some more ef-
fectual waj'- of settling their differences than by destroy-
ing one another. It is to be hoped they will speedily find
a way, and that the lessons of the Great War will not be
lost, as others were before it. If they fail in this, it
seems to the ordinary man simply incalculable why so
many brave men should have died in vain.
Returning from this digression, it is evident to the
most casual observer that a mighty liberalizing force has
been at work in the Presbyterian Church in the past
forty or fifty years. Without entering into the merits of
the question at all, or passing any judgment, the very fact
that the movement known as Church Union in Canada is
not only seriously proposed but, at this writing, seems
likely of consummation, with the said Church as an acces-
sory thereto, is the best evidence of the new spirit of to-
lerance which has come over the spirit of its dream. An-
other movement which has gained great headway among
its members ,and seems destined to spread still further,
—250—
CONCLUSION
is what was once known as Higher Criticism, or, more
recently, Modernism. It is gratifying to notice that the
behevers in the old orthodoxy are, in general, (there are
exceptions of course) willing to admit that the men of the
new thought are not only as clever, but as sincere and
conscientious as themselves. One is appalled to think
of what would have happened the Presbyterian Modernists
had they lifted their heads seventy-five years ago. They
would have been thrown neck and crop out of the church
and ostracized as cruelly as though they had been lepers.
Another weakness that has been charged against the
Scottish people is that of family pride. That it existed
in the Old Land, and that many of the first settlers in
Sydenham brought it with them, is undeniable.. There
is no country in the world where the gradations in so-
ciety are so fine, yet so distinctly drawn, as in the British
Isles. Sixty and seventy years ago, when these men
left Scotland, this condition was far worse. From royalty
down to the lowest strata of agricultural labor each class
looked down on the class beneath it, (and the number of
classes passes comprehension) with an assumption of fro-
zen dignity and aloofness that was at once both silly and
amusing. Thackeray, who understood his countrymen
pretty well, said there was only one more contemptible ob-
ject in the world than an Enghsh snob and that was a
Scotch snob, "than whom" he said, "there is no more
contemptible creature breathing." It still persists there,
though in a greatly modified form. The Scottish settlers
in Canada soon found out, however, that this sort of thing
worked very badly in a new land. They found it a land
where Jack was as good as his master, ate at the same
table with him and shared freely in the general conver-
—251—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
sation. And it is to their credit that, once they had be-
come accustomed to the change, they saw the silHness of
the old order and welcomed the new one. Democracy
makes queer converts. One hundred years ago a demo-
crat in England was a pariah and a demagogue dangerous
to the state; the contemptuous ridicule we heap upon the
head of the communist today falls far short of what the
English democrat had to endure in the beginning of Queen
Victoria's reign even. Today England rather prides her-
self upon her democracy.
The fact is that the British Isles, in the first half
of the nineteenth century ,and more particularly Scot-
land, was about the best country in Europe to get away
from. The proof of this is seen in the tide of emigration
which, about the end of the Napoleonic wars, began to set
in from there to America and Canada. The patience of
the Scottish peasantry with what they had to endure sur-
passes human comprehension. One of these worthies
whose life we have sketched was wont to tell his children,
after coming to Canada, which he did after having reached
middle life, that in the parish of Roxburghshire where he
had lived he had known personally of eleven deaths by
starvation, in the twelve years he had stayed there.
The money which would have saved their lives was at the
same time in the hands of the Established Church clergy-
men, who administered it under the Poor Law. The es-
tates of the Duke of Buccleugh covered the greater part
of the county; that is, the part really worth having. That
was bonny Scotland with a vengeance — bonny for the Duke
but perdition for the poor.
It was the men who were profoundly dissatisfied with
such conditions and who saw no chance of ameliorating
—252—
CONCLUSION
their lot in life there from whom Canada drew the pick
of her pioneers. They knew well the hardships that
waited them here, and they knew as well that the friends
they were leaving they might never again see on this
side of the grave, which to some of them must have seemed
the hardest part of all. But they saw at the same time
the opportunity of owning a piece of land in the country
beyond the sea, and they had the courage to take a chance.
In that day of slow and uncertain communication the ac-
ceptance of such a chance meant more to them than we
can well realize in our own times.
These men have played their part and passed from
the scene. The part they played, it seems to us, was
something akin to that of the Pilgrim Fathers when
they landed in New England, and set about the establish-
ment of civilization in America. They laid the founda-
tion strong and secure and nowhere more so than it was
laid in North Sydenham.
"Raise high the monumental stone !
A nation's fealty is theirs
And we are the rejoicing heirs,
The grateful sons of sires whose caref
We take upon us unawares.
As freely as our own."
There has been no attempt to gloss over their shortcomings.
It would have been much pleasanter to have done so, but
in the words of one of the wisest of the Scottish people
"they never yet feared for the truth to be heard but they
whom the truth would indict."
-253-
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
We have compared them to the men of the Mayflower.
In 1820 a vast gathering at Plymouth Rock commemorated
the landing of the Fathers. The orator of the occasion
was Daniel Webster; William Ewart Gladstone declared
him to be the greatest orator of modern times. He de-
livered one of the three greatest orations of his life and
its conclusion, embodying as it does our own conception
of the purest and loftiest patriotism, has seemed peculiarly
apposite to us in ending our own labors. In dilating upon
the future of America he spoke as follows :
''Let us not forget the religious character of our ori-
gin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high
veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed In
its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incor-
porate its principles with the elements of their society
and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions,
civil, political, and literary. Let us cherish these senti-
ments and extend their influence still more widely, in the
full conviction that that is the happiest society which par-
takes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceable
spirit of Christianity."
"The hours of this day are rapidly flying and this
occasion will soon be past. Neither we nor our children
can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant re-
gions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power
of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace
through us their descent from the pilgrims and to sur-
vey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their coun-
try through the lapse of a century. We would anticipate
their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep re-
gard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate
—254—
CONCLUSION
and partake the pleasure with which they will then re-
count the steps of our beloved country's advancement.
We would leave for the consideration of those who shall
then occupy our places some proof that we hold the bless-
ings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation ; some
proof of our attachment to the cause of good government
and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere
and ardent desire to promote everything which may en-
large the understandings and improve the hearts of men.
And when from the long distance of a hundred years they
shall look back upon us they shall know, at least, that we
possessed affections which, running backward and warm-
ing with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for
our happiness, run forward also to our posterity and meet
them with cordial salutation ere yet they have arrived on
the shore of Being."
"Advance, then, ye future generations ! We would
hail you as you rise in your long succession to fill the
places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of ex-
istence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed,
our human duration. We bid you welcome to the pleasant
land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to our healthful
skies and verdant fields. We greet your accession to the
great inheritance we have enjoyed. We welcome you to
the blessings of good government and religious liberty.
We welcome you to the treasures of science and the de-
lights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent
sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and
parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasur-
able blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of
Christianity, and the light of everlasting Truth!"
—255—
REMINISCENCES OF NORTH SYDENHAM
The orator has expressed very clearly the spirit in
which this book has been written. It is offered as some
proof to those who come after us that the people of North
Sydenham were not wanting in gratitude and that, in the
words of Webster, they held in just estimation the bless-
ings transmitted to them by their fathers.
They are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work,
While the followers there in embryo wait behind
We today's procession heading,
We the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! 0 Pioneers!"
THE END.
—256—
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